Drift Protocol said it has rebranded to Velocity DEX and secured a $127.5 million credit line from Tether. The relaunch follows an April 1, 2026 exploit attributed to North Korea’s Lazarus Group that resulted in losses of more than $280 million. Drift was previously a leading Solana-based perpetual futures platform, and the incident hit confidence in Solana’s derivatives infrastructure. The credit line is intended to rebuild liquidity and user confidence, while on-chain flows and adoption remain under scrutiny.

An announcement said XRP will be used via an autobridging mechanism to close a liquidity gap between the OUSD stablecoin and a large set of existing long-tail assets, aiming to improve conversion rates. The plan is positioned as an infrastructure upgrade for the OUSD ecosystem, with XRP serving as the cross-chain bridging asset. No launch timeline, partner details, or TVL figures were disclosed, but the announcement described XRP as the core liquidity intermediary in the design.

今日上线一款Solana原生预测市场，已集成Phantom钱包，由Chainlink提供链下数据喂价服务。该平台为Solana生态首个具备完整链上结算能力的预测市场应用，支持实时事件投注与自动清算。无披露具体TVL或交易量数据，但明确标注面向Phantom用户开放，属Solana DeFi基础设施层实质性扩展。

Liquid Mercury said on July 1, 2026 that the white paper for its native token, MERC, has been submitted to the Central Bank of Ireland and added to ESMA’s MiCA white paper register. The company said the filing positions MERC among the first non-stablecoin crypto-assets to meet the EU’s MiCA disclosure requirements. Liquid Mercury said the step supports MERC’s admission to trading on regulated venues across the EU and EEA, according to the company.

South Korea’s Financial Services Commission decided at a July 1, 2026 meeting to refer two suspected virtual-asset market manipulation cases to prosecutors. One case involves a “whale” alleged to have coordinated a pump-and-dump across domestic and overseas exchanges, while the other centers on alleged API-based high-frequency trading combined with manual order placement to create fake demand. Separately, the Bank of Korea is advancing Project Hangang’s unified-ledger infrastructure and plans to launch a second phase in the second half of 2026 to pilot tokenized government bonds and government subsidy disbursements. The parallel push tightens enforcement while upgrading infrastructure, without naming specific tokens, but it directly affects localized trading activity and the small-cap token ecosystem.

Open Standard announced Open USD on June 30, 2026, outlining a reserve-earnings sharing stablecoin that would let more than 140 partners, including Visa, Mastercard, Coinbase and BlackRock, participate in yield distribution. The design is aimed at Section 404 of the CLARITY Act draft, which would bar paying passive stablecoin yield to U.S. users. Open USD is not yet live and has no circulating supply, reserve audit, or on-chain data, with a launch expected later in 2026. Its approach shifts yield from token holders to commercial participants, challenging USDC’s issuer-led reserve-economics structure.

Florida has approved HB 505 (Chapter 2026-178), creating a regulatory framework for crypto ATMs that requires fraud warnings, receipts, daily limits, identity checks, and a full refund obligation for certain first-time transactions. New customers will be capped at $2,000 per day, and operators must provide a full refund within 72 hours for a customer’s first transaction if alleged fraud is reported within 60 days with supporting proof. Most provisions take effect Jan. 1, 2027, while the registration requirement begins March 1, 2027. The law follows 1,213 Florida complaints tied to crypto ATMs in 2025 and $32.8 million in losses.

Federal disclosure filings show Donald Trump made about $1.2 billion last year from crypto ventures tied to World Liberty Financial (CRYPTO: $WLFI) governance tokens and Trump-themed souvenir meme coins sold through CIC Digital LLC. The article says that after returning to office he quickly shifted away from the previous administration’s tougher regulatory posture and backed a more digital-asset-friendly agenda, including the Clarity Act. It adds that the piece does not provide $WLFI’s current market cap, circulating supply, or trading data. It also notes $WLFI is the only crypto asset explicitly named with a direct policy linkage.