Equities update | July 10th, 2026

Week 28 saw crypto assets rebounding despite Strategy selling 3,588 BTC for approximately US$216m. Investors appeared to take some comfort from the company strengthening its US dollar reserve to support preferred dividends and other obligations, reducing the near-term risk of a disorderly sale. Broader equity markets remained volatile, particularly in South Korea, where the KOSPI suffered a sharp midweek correction as investors took profits across the crowded AI semiconductor trade ahead of SK Hynix’s US$26.5bn Nasdaq listing, before partially recovering. Renewed US-Iran hostilities lifted oil prices and inflation concerns, although the wider equity-market response remained relatively contained as investors continued to expect the escalation to be temporary. On the corporate side, Circle received final OCC approval to establish a national trust bank, AI infrastructure investment continued to accelerate, Japanese financial institutions advanced digital-asset initiatives, and SWIFT prepared to pilot 24/7 tokenised cross-border payments with 17 global banks.

Week 28 Key Developments in Blockchain Equities:

• Index Performance: The Index rose +2.9% in Week 28, outperforming Bitcoin, which gained +1.7%. The Federal Reserve’s June meeting minutes maintained a hawkish tone, with policymakers noting that inflation had become more broad-based and remained subject to upside risks from energy prices, tariffs and resilient demand. While the Committee unanimously held rates at 3.50–3.75%, a few participants saw a case for an immediate increase and many judged that rates may need to finish the year above current levels if inflation remains elevated. Renewed hostilities between the US and Iran added to inflation concerns after fresh strikes and retaliation around the Gulf briefly pushed oil prices higher. 

• Block Index Key Movers: 7-day top performers: Cipher Digital (+16.1%), Metaplanet (+14.0%), Core Scientific (+10.8%) 7-day worst performers: Softbank (-7.8%), Strategy Inc (-6.8%), Hyperliquid Strategies (-6.1%) 

• AI Infrastructure Deals Validate the Strategic Value of Power for Bitcoin miners – TeraWulf signed a 20-year lease with Anthropic covering approximately 401MW of critical IT capacity at its Justified Data campus, representing around US$19bn of contracted revenue. Index constituent Galaxy completed Phase I of Helios and began generating rental income after delivering 133MW of critical IT capacity to CoreWeave, which has committed to 526MW across the first three phases under 15-year leases. Galaxy expects the campus to generate more than US$1bn of average annual revenue once fully operational. Marathon Digital also agreed to acquire a Texas site with up to 2GW of potential grid capacity, expanding its longer-term AI and mining development pipeline. Collectively, these announcements highlight the broadening range of data-centre business models beyond pure co-location or GPU cloud services, with operators increasingly pursuing a mix of long-term leasing, powered-shell and managed-infrastructure arrangements. They also reinforce the scarcity value of secured power and grid access, which remain among the sector’s most monetisable assets on a per-MW basis.

• Circle receives final OCC approval for national trust bank – Circle received final approval from the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to establish Circle National Trust, placing part of its digital-asset infrastructure under direct federal supervision. The trust bank will initially provide digital-asset custody services to Circle and its affiliates, with the potential to offer custody to a limited number of banks and other regulated institutions and, in future, assume management of the USDC reserve. The approval strengthens Circle’s regulatory positioning and USDC’s institutional credibility, while potentially allowing the company to internalise more of its custody and reserve infrastructure. However, the charter does not provide traditional commercial-banking powers such as accepting customer deposits or issuing loans, and the immediate financial contribution is therefore likely to be limited. Circle joins Ripple, Coinbase, Bridge, BitGo, Fidelity Digital Assets and Paxos in seeking or obtaining national trust-bank status, highlighting how crypto firms are increasingly operating within the regulated banking system.

Other news - Index constituents:

• Strategy Inc sold 3,588 BTC for approximately US$216m, reducing holdings to 843,775 BTC and lifting its US dollar reserve to around US$2.55bn. The sale supports preferred dividends and other obligations, but also signals that Bitcoin is becoming a source of liquidity rather than permanently held treasury capital.

• SBI Holdings led a US$125m Series C investment in Gauntlet, an on-chain risk-management and yield-infrastructure provider. Gauntlet curates more than US$1.5bn of supplied assets and works with over 150 fintech and institutional platforms. The investment will support broader non-dollar stablecoin coverage, including planned support for JPY and other currencies, and aligns with SBI’s intended launch of a yen-denominated stablecoin during the second half of 2026.

• Metaplanet, JPYC, Progmat and Metaplanet Securities began a joint study into Bitcoin-backed digital-credit products using yen-denominated stablecoin settlement and security-token infrastructure. The project will consider structures in which Bitcoin acts as collateral or credit enhancement, while interest payments, issuance and redemptions are conducted using JPYC and tokenised securities.

• Canaan transferred its ADS listing from the Nasdaq Global Market to the Nasdaq Capital Market and applied for a further 180-day period to regain compliance with Nasdaq’s US$1 minimum bid-price requirement. The shares continue to trade under CAN, although a reverse ADS split remains a potential remedy if the price does not recover.

• Meta Platforms also broke ground on a 1GW AI-optimised data centre in Alberta, representing an investment of more than C$13bn.

Other news – Non - Index constituents:

• SWIFT prepares live tokenised-deposit payments with global banks – SWIFT’s blockchain-based shared ledger is ready for initial use, with 17 banks across six continents preparing to pilot cross-border transactions using tokenised commercial-bank deposits. Participants include Index constituents Citigroup and MUFG, alongside BNY, HSBC, Standard Chartered, UBS, Wells Fargo and DBS. The platform is intended to enable 24/7 movement of bank-issued digital money while preserving existing compliance, credit and banking controls, providing banks with an alternative route to faster cross-border settlement without requiring customers to move funds into independently issued stablecoins.