sap

Citigroup Research stated in the U.S. Economic Weekly published on July 2 that the U.S. non-farm payroll data for June showed a significant weakening, strongly refuting the necessity for interest rate hikes. Citigroup believes that several factors that previously supported a hawkish stance, including rising oil prices, accelerated wage growth, and core PCE above target, have gradually faded, stating that "the reasons for rate hikes have disappeared."Data shows that in June, the U.S. non-farm payrolls added only 57,000 jobs, far below expectations, and the data for the previous two months was revised down by a total of 74,000 jobs. After revision, the average monthly growth of non-farm payrolls over the past three months has dropped to about 111,000, a significant decline from over 180,000 before the revision. The unemployment rate in June fell from 4.296% to 4.189%, but Citigroup believes this is mainly due to the labor participation rate dropping from 61.8% to 61.5%. If the participation rate remains unchanged, the unemployment rate would actually rise to above 4.5%.Regarding inflation, Citigroup stated that multiple factors are collectively suppressing price pressures. Oil prices have fallen back to pre-conflict levels, and July CPI and PCE data are expected to show a month-on-month decline; further slowing of housing rents will also drag down core CPI and core PCE. In addition, the revision of the core PCE methodology will adopt a more reasonable price adjustment approach for AI-related goods. Citigroup estimates that the year-on-year growth rate of the revised core PCE may be adjusted down by 20 to 30 basis points, which will be officially reflected in September.Citigroup maintains its baseline forecast, expecting the Federal Reserve to remain on hold at the FOMC meetings in July and September, with the first rate cut of 25 basis points occurring at the meeting on October 28, followed by another 25 basis points cut in December, bringing the federal funds rate range down to 3.0% to 3.25% by the end of the year. Citigroup also expects the Federal Reserve to cut rates three more times in 2027, with a terminal rate range of 2.75% to 3.0%.

CryptoQuant founder Ki Young Ju stated that the phenomenon of Bitcoin driving funds into altcoins, which once boosted altcoin markets, has basically disappeared. He pointed out that since 2021, the trading volume of altcoins paired with BTC has significantly shrunk, and the market structure has undergone noticeable changes. Ki Young Ju believes that the era of "Bitcoin rising leading to a general rise in altcoins" may have ended, and in the future, altcoins may rely more on their own fundamentals, application scenarios, and independent capital inflows to drive price increases.

Cuban stated, "Every time the dollar falls, Bitcoin should rise... but it just doesn't." He candidly expressed disappointment with Bitcoin but maintains a relatively positive attitude towards Ethereum, referring to most other cryptocurrencies as "garbage." Previously, Cuban had publicly stated that about 60% of his crypto asset portfolio is in Bitcoin, which he has held long-term without selling.

According to Coindesk, Hunter Horsley, co-founder and CEO of Bitwise, stated at the Miami Consensus 2026 conference regarding the "recent negative sentiment in the DeFi sector," "I believe DeFi is still doing very well." The recent specific event is operational security issues, not smart contracts being hacked. He also believes that the crypto industry is rapidly entering the mainstream, and DeFi and on-chain treasuries need to respond to this moment; treasuries have only been around for two years, "not all treasuries are equally reliable, and early entrants need to do more homework." Yoni Assia, co-founder and CEO of eToro, also stated that DeFi "is the inevitable future."In the roundtable discussion, several guests made predictions about DeFi TVL over the next five years: eToro CEO Yoni Assia gave a figure of $5 trillion; Bitwise CEO Hunter Horsley provided $500 billion; a16z Crypto partner Guy Wuollet declined to give a specific number, only stating, "My number is up and to the right."

According to Politico, Poland's major cryptocurrency exchange Zondacrypto is facing a serious fraud investigation. Its former CEO went missing in 2022, taking with him the private keys to a cold wallet containing 4,500 bitcoins (currently worth over $340 million). The current CEO has admitted to being unable to access the wallet and has recently been reported to have fled to Israel. Prosecutors estimate potential losses for customers to be around $97 million.On-chain data shows that the bitcoin balance in the platform's hot wallet has plummeted by 99.7% since mid-2024, with users generally reporting difficulties in withdrawing funds. Polish Prime Minister Tusk estimates that up to 30,000 users may be affected.Tusk publicly accused the platform of being funded by Russian-linked money, used to finance opposition lawmakers to obstruct Poland's cryptocurrency regulatory legislation. He bluntly stated that this is a "Polish version of a Ponzi scheme" and criticized the president for vetoing the localization of the EU MiCA framework twice, making Poland a "paradise for scammers."The platform's board stated that they failed to obtain "verifiable information" from the missing CEO and have collectively resigned. The founder has been missing since 2022, and the previously mentioned "suspect kidnapping allegations" case is still under investigation. This incident is expected to prompt Poland and the EU to strengthen regulatory scrutiny of cryptocurrency exchanges.

According to CoinDesk, Kraken's parent company Payward submitted a second amended complaint to the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado, suing former custody partner Etana Custody and its CEO Dion Brandon Russell, accusing them of misappropriating over $25 million in customer funds and operating a "Ponzi scheme."Payward claims that Etana mixed custodial assets with its own funds to pay for operational expenses and high-risk investments, and covered up the funding gap with false account reports.In April 2025, when Kraken attempted to withdraw about $25 million in reserve funds, Etana delayed the process citing false reconciliation issues and relied on new deposits to fill the gap. Among these, at least $16 million was invested in a promissory note from Seabury Trade Capital, which later defaulted.Colorado regulators subsequently issued a cease and desist order against Etana, which entered liquidation proceedings in November 2025 and is currently managed by a court-appointed receiver. Kraken is seeking at least $25 million in damages and triple civil theft damages.

According to Jinshi reports, U.S. President Trump stated that he would be disappointed if the new Federal Reserve Chairman does not cut interest rates.

According to Cointelegraph, Telegram CEO Pavel Durov called WhatsApp's end-to-end encryption a "huge consumer fraud." He pointed out that about 95% of private messages ultimately end up stored in unencrypted backups on Apple and Google servers.Durov believes that this situation puts users' privacy at risk. Although WhatsApp claims that its message transmission process uses end-to-end encryption, the actual backup mechanism fails to ensure the complete encryption of user information. This statement has raised industry concerns about the privacy protection measures of mainstream messaging applications.

Binance founder Zhao Changpeng (CZ) recalled in his new book that after the "9·4" regulatory policy was introduced in 2017, venture capital firms as a whole became more cautious, and Sequoia Capital, which had originally expressed investment intentions, also paused related cooperation. He stated, "Seeing the venture capitalists collectively silent during our most difficult September, I was actually quite disappointed."CZ revealed that prior to this, Sequoia had expressed investment interest at the beginning of He Yi's joining, but chose to wait and see in light of the policy impact. Subsequently, Binance achieved rapid growth from September to October, with the number of users increasing from about 20,000 in August to about 120,000 by late October, ranking among the top ten exchanges globally and becoming profitable.CZ stated that by the end of October, after the risk phase had basically passed, Sequoia re-expressed its investment intentions, but they had proposed to raise the valuation requirement. Ultimately, the two sides could not reach an agreement due to valuation differences. The other party then proposed to pursue legal proceedings, and a week later, four large boxes of legal documents were delivered. CZ said this was the "first time in his life becoming a defendant." CZ mentioned that he later learned that the lawsuit was led by Sequoia's legal team in the U.S., who are skilled at using the media to create public opinion, "the media reporters knew before I, the party involved."

According to a report by Xinhua News Agency, the latest poll results released by Fox News Channel show that about 59% of surveyed American voters are dissatisfied with President Trump's administration, an increase of 8 percentage points from a year ago, reaching a new high during his term; the satisfaction rate dropped from 49% to 41%.The survey is based on a random sample of 1,001 registered voters. Among different parties, the satisfaction rate among Republican voters is 84%, a year-on-year decrease of 8 percentage points; while the dissatisfaction rates among Democratic and independent voters reach 95% and 75%, respectively.

Yili Hua posted on platform X, stating that the current cryptocurrency market is in a bear market and the war is not over, lacking a significant rebound. The performance of the cryptocurrency sector over the past four years has been disappointing, with the crypto middle class, retail investors, and VCs all being harvested, while exchanges, market makers, and project teams continue to siphon off funds. Currently, the market's capital inflow mainly comes from Wall Street ETFs, DAT, and a few believers, and there has been no disruptive innovation in the cryptocurrency sector yet.

According to Jin Shi reports, Federal Reserve Chairman Powell stated that the lack of a decline in non-housing services inflation is frustrating.

According to Cointelegraph, Andrei Grachev, managing partner of crypto market maker DWF Labs, analyzed that the "Altseason" driven by the overall rise of the crypto market is becoming a thing of the past. The surge in the number of tokens in the market, the limited scale of participants, and the absorption of liquidity by crypto ETFs are changing the market structure. Currently, institutional funds are more inclined to allocate to Bitcoin, Ethereum, and tokenized real-world assets (RWA), further diverting attention and funds away from altcoins. In the future, the market will see shorter narrative cycles and more intense sector rotations, with a large number of mid- to long-tail tokens resembling high-risk investments or "casino-like" assets, struggling to survive solely on speculation.Data shows that over the past 13 months, the market capitalization of altcoins has cumulatively flowed out more than $209 billion, and currently about 38% of altcoin prices are close to historical lows.

According to the WSJ, on February 24, the court-appointed bankruptcy administrator of Terraform Labs has sued Jane Street in the federal court in New York, accusing it of engaging in front-running trades and profiting from non-public insider information provided by Terra insiders during the Terra collapse. The lawsuit reveals that Jane Street established a secret communication channel with Terraform Labs employees through former intern Bryce Pratt to obtain non-public confidential information. On May 7, 2022, Terraform Labs withdrew 150 million TerraUSD (UST) from the Curve liquidity pool without prior announcement, and Jane Street followed suit by withdrawing approximately 85 million UST through affiliated wallets in less than 10 minutes, completing the "front-running" trade before a massive market panic and the complete de-pegging of UST, which not only resulted in illegal profits but also accelerated the collapse of Terraform Labs and the Terra ecosystem.A spokesperson for Jane Street responded to the accusations from the Terraform Labs bankruptcy administrator, stating that the lawsuit is an attempt to extract money from Jane Street, and that Jane Street will vigorously defend its rights against "baseless and opportunistic allegations." In addition to the Terraform lawsuit, Jane Street was accused of market manipulation in India last year, resulting in the freezing of assets worth approximately 4.843 billion rupees (about 565 million dollars) and a ban on trading in the Indian securities market. There are also rumors that Chinese regulators are reviewing Jane Street's trading patterns in the Chinese ETF market.The crypto community has noted that since Jane Street was sued, the daily "10 AM crash" of Bitcoin (Eastern Time) has suddenly disappeared, with Bitcoin rising by 10% and its market capitalization increasing by approximately 120 billion dollars, marking the first green weekly candle for BTC after five consecutive red ones. During the same period, the total market capitalization of the cryptocurrency market also increased by nearly 200 billion dollars. Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas stated, "This 'threat' has disappeared, which is the atmosphere felt today in CT and price movements. I also understand that the previous significant intraday drops nearly destroyed every rebound and undermined everyone's confidence. But is simply eliminating it enough to support a sustained rebound? We shall see."Speculation surrounding Jane Street has reignited discussions about the trading mechanism of Bitcoin spot ETFs. Analysts point out that the share creation and redemption of spot ETFs can be completed by authorized participants (APs) under a regulatory exemption framework, and does not necessarily require immediate buying and selling of Bitcoin in the public market; in cases of futures contango, APs may also hedge and protect through derivatives such as futures, leading to a time lag between ETF fund inflows and spot buying and short-term price performance.As a leading global quantitative trading giant, Jane Street has a broad presence in the cryptocurrency sector, primarily focused on infrastructure, DeFi, and crypto mining. Public information shows that Jane Street has invested in several crypto-native projects, including: ZetaChain, Arbitrum, 1inch, Euler Finance, Membrane Labs, Kaito, Vest Exchange, and others.In terms of equity, Jane Street significantly increased its holdings in several crypto mining companies through the secondary market between 2024 and 2026, including: approximately 5.4% of Bitfarms (BITF); approximately 5% of Cipher Mining (CIFR); and approximately 5% of Hut 8 (HUT). Additionally, Jane Street participated in multiple rounds of Kraken financing last year. Jane Street is also one of the main liquidity providers and stockholders of Coinbase.

According to the official announcement, Binance has officially launched five brand new official WhatsApp channels, including Mandarin Chinese, Africa, Arabic, Argentina, and Brazil channels.The announcement states that these WhatsApp-verified channels will only support one-way communication and are the only channel for Binance to enter WhatsApp in the Chinese-speaking community in Africa, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), and Latin America, as well as non-continental regions.