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AI-focused NEAR token halted its 10% rally on Thursday as traders began to take profits from a rally that was spurred by Bitwise's announcement that it is launching a NEAR exchange traded product (ETP) in Germany.

"The NEAR Staking ETP on Xetra opens a new bridge to NEAR for institutions by providing a regulated, exchange-traded way to earn staking rewards," Illia Polosukhin told CoinDesk. "Investors gain compliant access to the NEAR ecosystem and user-owned AI without needing to handle private keys or node operations, and with full price transparency.”

The token has now established a key level of support at $2.26 as it looks to consolidate before continuing to the upside.

Technical analysis

• NEAR established strong support at $2.26 with above-average volume during the 24-hour period from 2 July 16:00 to 3 July 15:00.
• Price broke through the $2.30 resistance level in the early hours of 3 July, reaching a new high at $2.36 during the 08:00 hour with substantial volume confirmation.
• The 23.6% Fibonacci retracement level provided support during the profit-taking phase, suggesting the underlying uptrend remains intact.
• During the 60-minute period from 3 July 14:50 to 15:49, NEAR experienced a steep sell-off at 15:04-15:07, where volume spiked to over 310,000 units.
• A new support zone has been established between $2.26-$2.27, with the closing price of $2.26 suggesting continued bearish pressure in the short term.

CoinDesk 20 Index Jumps 2% Before Late Session Selloff

Over the last 24 hours from 3 July 15:00 to 2 July 16:00, CD20 exhibited significant volatility with an overall range of $37.27 (2.11%), reaching a peak of $1,811.11 during the 14:00 hour on 3 July before sharply retracing to $1,791.50 by session close.

The asset demonstrated remarkable strength during the mid-session rally, gaining over $21 (1.18%) from its overnight low of $1,778.85, with particularly aggressive buying momentum observed during the 09:00 and 13:00 hours that suggests institutional accumulation despite the late session profit-taking.

The altcoin market took a backseat on Thursday as crypto majors bitcoin and ether attempted to rally to new highs.

As billions of dollars worth of liquidity flowed into shorting bitcoin on the brink of record highs, altcoins like ATOM consolidated, finding support at the $4.20 level.

Typically when bitcoin rallies altcoin price action is muted and the inverse is true when bitcoin consolidates, so ATOM could be primed for a rally once bitcoin begins to cool off.

Technical analysis

• ATOM-USD traded within a range of $4.09 to $4.26 during the 24-hour period from 2 July 16:00 to 3 July 15:00, representing a 4% swing.
• Key support established at $4.16-$4.17 with high volume buying emerging at the $4.20 level during the 13:00 hour session on July 3rd.
• Despite reaching a peak of $4.26 during the 07:00 hour, ATOM failed to sustain momentum above the $4.25 resistance level.
• In the last 60 minutes from 3 July 14:24 to 15:23, ATOM-USD declined from $4.24 to $4.21, representing a 0.73% decrease.
• Sharp selloff occurred between 15:03-15:07, dropping to a session low of $4.19, before staging a recovery.
• Final 15 minutes showed stabilization with price consolidation around $4.21, suggesting potential short-term equilibrium.

CD20 Index Surges 2% Before Profit-Taking Emerges

• The CD20 demonstrated significant volatility in the last 24 hours from 2 July 16:00 to 3 July 15:00, reaching a peak of $1,811.11 before retracing to $1,793.55, with an overall range of $37.27 (2%).
• After establishing support around $1,780 during early hours, the index staged an impressive rally through the morning session of 3 July, gaining momentum particularly between 09:00-14:00 before profit-taking emerged in the final hour.

Tax proposals meant to reduce burdens among crypto users, including one that would waive capital-gains calculations for small-scale transactions, didn't make it into President Donald Trump's marquee budget bill but are now being pursued as standalone legislation in the U.S. Senate.

Senator Cynthia Lummis, who leads the crypto subcommittee within the Senate Banking Committee, introduced the bill on Thursday to address a number of the digital assets sectors' chief taxation complaints. The legislation would set a threshold of $300 on crypto transactions that would need to factor into a users' tax calculations, freeing up people's small, day-to-day transactions from capital-gains headaches — limited to a total of $5,000 a year.

The effort would also eliminate double taxation on crypto given in staking, mining, airdrops and forks, tossing out the initial tax hit when the rewards are received and focusing only on taxing gains from the eventual sale. It would also address lending, wash sales, charitable giving and let dealers and traders choose to mark their assets to the current market value in their accounting.

"We cannot allow our archaic tax policies to stifle American innovation, and my legislation ensures Americans can participate in the digital economy without inadvertent tax violations," Lummis said in a statement.

Lummis has launched this bill into uncertain waters. Getting Senate time devoted to solitary bills is a challenge in an already busy session, but adding to that complication is the fact that a number of other crypto matters are likely to take priority — including the two bills that would establish regulations for the U.S. crypto markets and stablecoin issuers. And another of her legislative campaigns to establish a federal bitcoin (BTC) reserve is also in the mix.

The Wyoming Republican has been at the forefront of crypto matters, but the top priority for the industry on Capitol Hill at the moment is the advancement of the bill to set rules of the road for how the government will oversee the digital assets markets. Lummis publicly agreed to hew to a deadline recently set by Senator Tim Scott, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, to deliver the market structure bill to Trump's desk by the end of September.

Read More: Congress' Budget Bill Advances From Senate Without Crypto Tax Provision

We’re living through a technological shift unlike any in history. As artificial intelligence and robotics rapidly evolve, they're doing more than just changing how we work—they're changing why we work. Over the next decade, if humanity can share automation tech evenly across society, we’re facing the real possibility that most people simply won’t need to work to survive. Some futurists, including myself, are calling this the Automated Abundance Economy.

The basic idea is straightforward: once machines can do most jobs—like farming, construction, healthcare, education—the essentials of life can be produced in abundance, with very little human labor. In that world, wealth stops being the reward for work and becomes a shared outcome of automation.

At the heart of this shift are two forces: near-total automation and a proposed universal basic income (UBI). Machines and software are getting better, faster, and cheaper, and they’re already replacing some jobs en masse—from factory floors to fast food counters. Probably within five years, machines will routinely build our homes, grow our food, teach our kids, and care for the elderly. That kind of productivity will generate immense wealth, even if humans aren’t the ones directly creating it anymore.

So how do we make sure that wealth benefits everyone? That’s where UBI comes in. It’s not welfare—it’s a dividend. A share of the value created by automation, distributed to every citizen simply because they’re part of the system that led to this exact economy.

Critics will say this is socialism, but it’s not. The Automated Abundance Economy still supports private ownership, entrepreneurship, and innovation. People who invest in automation will see returns. But the system would also be taxed or regulated so that a portion of that wealth comes back to the public in the form of UBI, stock options from AI companies, or similar ideas.

In this context, UBI and other social monetary programs become a kind of economic citizenship—a guarantee that you’ll have access to food, shelter, healthcare, and education, without having to punch a clock. It also challenges the old idea that a person’s value is tied to their job. In this future, we all have intrinsic economic value just by being alive.

Of course, even though work won’t be a requirement for survival, many people will still choose to work. But in this new system, motivation will be intrinsic, not economic. Creative fields, gig work, writing, design—these will flourish. And since survival isn’t on the line, people can afford to take risks, experiment, or fail without fear.

Some parts of this are already happening. Automation is steadily pushing humans out of repetitive and manual jobs. The Automated Abundance Economy just follows that trend to its logical conclusion. Because when machines can handle everything from cleaning to caregiving, it forces us to ask: what do we want to do with our time, if survival no longer demands most of it?

The answer could be a global cultural renaissance. A world where creativity, curiosity, and connection define daily life; a world where everyone has the chance to be a maker, thinker, or explorer. We may finally have the time and freedom to fully explore human potential, no longer bogged down by the daily grind.

The Automated Abundance Economy is not just about work, either. Futurists like me want the government to give or lease a humanoid robot to every American household. These robots would handle everyday chores—like cooking, cleaning, and doing laundry—saving hours each week for families. Over time, owning a personal robot might be as normal as owning a smartphone today.

Even governance could evolve. If machines can enforce safety, compliance, and even legal standards, we might not need as much traditional bureaucracy. Public systems could be managed by transparent AI trained on ethical frameworks and shaped by citizens. Some even suggest models like liquid democracy, where people vote on policies directly, feeding those preferences into intelligent systems that execute decisions.

What I like best about the Automated Abundance Economy is it avoids the worst of both capitalism and socialism. It doesn’t aim to destroy markets or ban private ownership. Instead, it keeps innovation alive while making sure no one is left behind.

Still, none of this will be easy. If we’re not careful, automation could concentrate wealth and power even further. Surveillance, job displacement, and cultural backlash are real risks. Engineers alone can’t shape this future--we’ll need ethicists, artists, policymakers, and everyday people at the decision table. It has to be ethical, inclusive, and democratic.

Like it or not, the Automated Abundance Economy is coming far faster than most people realize. Our task isn’t to fight the future—it’s to guide it, to shape a society where freedom, fulfillment, and human dignity aren’t just reserved for the lucky few. This isn't just a new kind of economy; it's a new way of life, one society should embrace.

The Open Platform (TOP), a provider of tools for developers in Telegram’s crypto infrastructure, said it raised $28.5 million in an extended Series A round led by Ribbit Capital, with participation from Pantera Capital.

The raise brings TOP’s valuation to $1 billion, making it the first unicorn in the TON (The Open Network) ecosystem, the company said.

The company is building core infrastructure and consumer-facing apps on TON, Telegram’s official blockchain partner, aiming to scale crypto adoption across its global user base. The funding, which pushes TOP’s total capital raised to over $70 million, signals growing investor confidence in Telegram’s blockchain push.

TOP plans to use the capital injection to expand across the U.S., Europe and other markets, investing in compliance, security and go-to-market strategies, it said.

Products that it's developed, or which use its tools, include a Telegram-integrated wallet, non-custodial storage, decentralized exchanges, non-fungible token (NFT) marketplaces and games like the viral tap-to-earn hit Notcoin.

The Open Platform CEO and founder Andrew Rogozov said the company’s goal is to attract a billion users into crypto by leveraging Telegram’s distribution power and TON’s scalability.

The investment follows a wave of institutional interest in TON. Earlier this year, the TON Foundation revealed that investors including Sequoia Capital and Benchmark had acquired $400 million worth of toncoin (TON), the TON blockchain's native token.

Read more: TON Jumps as Foundation Says VC Firms Invested $400M in the Token

Stripe's recent multi-billion dollar acquisitions of Privy and Bridge weren’t just another pair of tech deals. They were a declaration that the crypto infrastructure experiment is over. The results are in – and they're compelling enough for one of the world's most successful payment companies to bet big.

A clear picture emerges: the future of finance isn't about choosing between traditional payments and crypto. It's about building seamless infrastructure that gives users the benefits of both.

Acquisitions Expose Fundamental Problem

Stripe's billion-dollar shopping spree reveals something critical about the current state of crypto infrastructure: it's fragmented, and traditional companies are trying to bolt together solutions that were never designed to work as one.

Piecemeal solutions create friction. And payments are just one piece of a much larger puzzle. What happens when users want to trade those stablecoins? Tokenize real-world assets? Access decentralized applications? Deploy smart contracts?

Stripe's approach – acquiring best-in-class point solutions – will smooth the kind of friction that has prevented crypto from achieving mainstream adoption. Users will hit seams between services, compliance gaps between providers, and the inevitable integration challenges that come with stitching together technologies built by different teams with different architectures.

Full-Stack Advantage

The companies that will truly capture the crypto opportunity aren't those assembling acquired pieces, but those that have built integrated ecosystems from the ground up. This isn't just about payments—it's about reimagining the entire financial services stack.

Consider what comprehensive crypto infrastructure actually requires: compliant exchange capabilities for liquidity, tokenization services for asset digitization, cloud infrastructure for scalable applications, AI-powered tools for risk management and user experience, and custody solutions that work across all these services seamlessly.

Each component must be designed with the others in mind. Regulatory compliance can't be an afterthought—it must be baked into the architecture. User experience can't be optimized for one service at the expense of another. Technical standards must be consistent across the platform.

Full-Stack Era Demands Native Solutions

Ultimately, the future belongs to platforms that understand crypto isn't just better payments—it's a fundamentally different approach to financial services. The transformations emerge when you combine programmable money with programmable assets, intelligent automation, and global infrastructure.

The winning platforms will be those that can offer users the full spectrum of financial services within a single, compliant, integrated environment. Users shouldn't need to understand which service handles custody versus trading versus tokenization. They shouldn't face different compliance requirements for different functions. They shouldn't encounter friction when moving between services.

This level of integration requires building from the ground up with a complete vision of what digital finance can become. It requires understanding that compliance, user experience, technical architecture, and business model must all align perfectly.

The Path Forward

The crypto convergence moment has arrived, promising users financial experiences that they don't even recognize as "crypto." Instant global settlements will become standard. Programmable payment terms will automate complex business relationships. Cross-border commerce will become as simple as domestic transactions.

We're moving toward a world where the benefits of crypto—speed, cost efficiency, global reach—are available without users ever thinking about the underlying technology.

That said, the next era won’t be led by traditional finance companies adding crypto features.It will be driven by crypto-native platforms that have solved the crypto integration challenge with a full-stack approach that maintains regulatory compliance and institutional-grade security.

The companies that will define the next decade of integrated financial services are those that already offer seamless, integrated experiences across the full spectrum of digital asset services. These companies understand that the future of finance is programmable, global, and always-on—and they've built their entire infrastructure around these principles.

Tether, the digital asset company behind the world’s largest stablecoin USDT USDT, is exploring renewable energy-powered bitcoin BTC mining with South American agribusiness firm Adecoagro (AGRO) in Brazil.

The firms have signed a strategic partnership for a pilot project to use Adecoagro's surplus energy to operate mining facilities and may also add BTC to Adecoagro's balance sheet in the future, according to a Thursday press release.

Adecoagro, in which Tether acquired a 70% stake, has 230 megawatt in power generation capacity across South America. The company is a prominent food producer in the region and owns sugar mills, rice farms and dairy operations.

"This project opens the door to stabilizing a portion of the energy we currently sell on the spot market, locking in pricing, while also gaining exposure to the upside potential of bitcoin," said Mariano Bosch, co-founder and CEO of Adecoagro.

The move underscores Tether's growing ambition in bitcoin mining following its previous investments in mining facility in the region. The firm said it has developed an operating system software for miners called Tether Mining OS, with plans to make it open source in the next months.

CEO Paolo Ardoino said at the Bitcoin 2025 conference in May that Tether "will be the biggest bitcoin miner by the end of this year" and has invested $2 billion in energy production and mining operations.

Read more: NY Bankruptcy Judge Gives Celsius the Green Light to Pursue $4.3B Lawsuit Against Tether

Crypto traders are exhibiting bearish behavior despite bitcoin BTC trading above $110,000 and possibly taking aim at a new record high above $112,000.

Data from Coinalyze shows that during bitcoin's move this week from $106,000 to $110,000, the long/short ratio fell from 1.223 in favor of longs to 0.858 in favor of shorts.

It's worth noting that the long/short ratio in this case is analyzing the percentage of accounts that are long or short, which is typically an indicator of retail sentiment. The long/short ratio has been negative numerous times during the recent move above $100,000 despite staying positive throughout the previous bull market in 2021.

Open interest also rose from $32 billion to $35 billion during this period, indicating that significant capital is being pumped into shorting bitcoin. However, funding rates remained positive throughout this rise, indicating that traders are also entering long positions.

Bitcoin has been trapped in a relatively tight range since early May, trading between $100,000 and $110,000 with three tests of each level of support and resistance.

Technical indicators like relative strength index (RSI) continue to paint a bearish image with several drives of bearish divergence, with RSI weakening on each test of $110,000.

The recent influx of short positions could well be lower timeframe traders capitalizing on the range, shorting resistance before reversing their trade at each test of $100,000.

This rang true on June 22 when the long/short ratio shot up to 1.68 as bitcoin momentarily slumped through $100,000 before bouncing.

There is a potential bull case with the increase in short positions: a short squeeze. This would occur if bitcoin begins to trigger liquidation points and stop losses above a record high, which would cause an impulse in buy pressure and continuation to the upside.

UPDATE JULY 3, 16:21 UTC: Adds context about long/short ratio and a sentence on the funding rate remaining positive.

The popular frog-themed memecoin PEPE surged 10% in 24 hours to reach $0.00001049, fueled by technical signals that could point to more upside amid a wider memecoin market rise.

The token climbed from $0.00000949 to $0.00001049, hitting a peak of $0.00001077 in early trading before retracing slightly.

A key technical pattern, a golden cross, where the short-term moving average rises above the long-term average, has formed on PEPE’s chart, hinting at sustained bullish momentum.

A golden cross is widely watched in trading circles because it suggests that recent buying pressure might carry over into a longer-term rally.

Trading volume spiked significantly during the rally, hitting 13.7 trillion tokens in a single hour as the price started lifting, and 7.7 trillion later on, underscoring the intensity of the rally.

Meanwhile, the wider memecoin sector, according to the CoinDesk Memecoin Index (CDMEME), rose 11.4% in the last 24 hours.

Despite a pullback from the highs, PEPE has established a strong support level near $0.0000101, according to CoinDesk Research's technical analysis data model. Fibonacci extension levels suggest the price could push toward $0.0000110 if the rally holds.

The cryptocurrency has outperformed the wider cryptocurrency market over the last 24 hours, as measured by the CoinDesk 20 (CD20) index, which rose 5.92% in the same period.

Filecoin (FIL) surged as much as 9% in the last 24 hours, climbing from $2.24 to $2.44 with exceptional volume support at the $2.30 level, according to CoinDesk Research's technical analysis model.

The model showed that FIL has established strong support at $2.40 despite wider market uncertainty.

Filecoin is holding an informal networking evening on July 3 in Cannes, aligned with EthCC.

The rally in Filecoin came as the wider crypto market also rose, with the broader market gauge, the Coindesk 20, recently up 3.9%.

In recent trading, FIL was 6.4% higher over 24 hours, trading around $2.395.

Technical Analysis:

• FIL traded within an $0.19 range (8.5%) between the low of $2.24 and high of $2.44 during the last 24 hours
• Most significant price movement occurred during the 16:00 hour on July 2, with a 5.2% surge on high volume (11 million units), establishing strong support at $2.30.
• After reaching $2.44 at 07:00 on July 3, FIL entered consolidation with increased selling pressure forming resistance around $2.42.
• During the 60-minute period from July 3 11:50 to 12:49, FIL showed high volatility with an uptrend to $2.42 at 12:30, followed by a sharp 4.5% correction to $2.37.
• Notable volume spike (739,000 units) at 12:30-12:31 triggered the reversal, with support established at $2.38.
• Decreasing volume in final minutes suggests consolidation after the volatile hour.