Morning Edition · Thursday, July 16, 2026
Crypto
DTCC Runs First Live Tokenized Trades of Stocks and Treasuries With Wall Street's Biggest Firms
JPMorgan converted Invesco QQQ Trust shares into a token and posted it as margin at CME Group, one of several production trades settled on regulated blockchains ahead of a full October launch.
Crypto
Ostium Halts Trading After Attacker Uses Compromised Oracle Key to Drain $18 Million
The attacker controlled a registered price-feed signer and submitted future-dated prices to create fake profits on the Arbitrum perpetuals venue, the latest in a series of oracle and keeper exploits.
Crypto
Privacy Layer-2 Networks Ship Live Confidential Execution and Pitch It as Institutional Baseline
Aztec details how its transactions keep balances and logic private while proving validity, and Miden argues confidentiality is a prerequisite, not a feature, for serious on-chain use.
Crypto
Morgan Stanley Wins Preliminary Approval to Pull Crypto Custody, Staking and Lending In-House
A national trust-bank charter from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency would let the bank consolidate functions it now outsources, erasing the distinction between broker and crypto infrastructure.
Markets
Ether Outpaces Bitcoin as Exchange-Traded Fund Inflows Return, Led Almost Entirely by BlackRock
Spot bitcoin, ether and Hyperliquid funds took in net money on July 15 while Solana funds lost money, and the Securities and Exchange Commission quadrupled the options limit on BlackRock's bitcoin fund.
Crypto
Japan's Parliament Reclassifies Bitcoin and Crypto as Financial Products
The amendment to the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act allows spot crypto exchange-traded funds and a planned cut in the top crypto tax rate to a flat 20 percent.
Geopolitics
China Moves to Treat Crypto Mixer Use as Evidence of Money Laundering
Chinese prosecutors' proposals and a United Kingdom push to train judges on crypto cases mark a widening state effort to uncover the identities behind on-chain activity, deepening demand for cryptographic privacy.
Geopolitics
United States Freezes $131 Million in Tether Tied to Iran's Central Bank
The Treasury said it blocked funds across four Tron wallets, showing how dollar stablecoins have become a direct instrument of sanctions enforcement.
Crypto
Base Creator Jesse Pollak Steps Back From App Leadership, Admits Social Strategy Failed
Pollak said the network's multi-year bet on on-chain social products did not deliver, and is redirecting Base toward trading, payments and artificial-intelligence financial tools.
Crypto
Stanford Study Says Polymarket's Five-Minute Bitcoin Bets Moved $8.2 Million to Manipulators
Researchers found the short-window contracts create incentives for sophisticated traders to nudge spot prices and profit at the expense of ordinary participants.
Crypto
Bitcoin Untouched Since the 2017 Peak Moves $383 Million, as Old and Seized Coins Reawaken
The dormant coins went to a fresh address rather than an exchange, and a separate $288 million United States government transfer to Coinbase renewed questions about seized-coin custody.
Geopolitics
Trump to Meet Senators as Ethics Fight Threatens Crypto Market-Structure Bill
Negotiations over the CLARITY Act's ethics provisions could decide whether the bill passes before the August recess, as Democrats accuse the administration of shielding the president's crypto ventures.