Castle Securities: US retail investors are buying the dip at a record pace

According to a WSJ report, officials familiar with the matter revealed that internal power struggles in Iran are threatening US-Iran peace talks: Civilian leaders aim to unfreeze tens of billions of dollars in assets, while hardline military officials are striving for control over the Strait of Hormuz. The civilian leadership, led by Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, seeks to unlock tens of billions of dollars in funds to alleviate the hardships faced by millions of Iranians. However, other powerful factions in Iran, including the now-dominant Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), have different plans. The IRGC intends to maintain full control over the strategically vital strait at all costs and plans to establish a lucrative toll system for vessel transits, which would both boost the armed force’s finances and let it dominate regional security dynamics. The IRGC has told mediators that if it fails to secure guarantees during the Doha talks that Iran will have sole control over the Strait of Hormuz, it will once again close the waterway. Additionally, the group has demanded that the United States and other countries abandon plans to have vessels transit the southern part of the strait, near Omani waters.

According to a WSJ report, sources familiar with the matter said Iran's Revolutionary Guards have informed mediators that if guarantees of Iran's exclusive control over the Strait of Hormuz are not secured during the Doha talks, the Guards will once again close the waterway. The Revolutionary Guards also demanded that the U.S. and other countries abandon plans to have ships sail through the southern waters of the strait near Oman.

OKX has officially launched the beta version of its AI platform OKX AI, which supports autonomous AI Agents to collaborate, take orders, and settle transactions in USDT or USDG stablecoins. The platform comprises two core modules: the Agent Marketplace allows developers to publish AI Agents, define services and pricing, and automatically earn revenue upon task completion; the Task Marketplace enables AI Agents to post tasks, source collaboration partners, and only pay fees once tasks are finished. Settlement on the platform follows two models based on task type: escrow settlement or on-demand instant payment. OKX notes that the platform’s key feature is a unified identity system for every AI Agent, allowing them to build consistent credibility across different tasks and payment modes, eliminating the need to establish separate credit records across multiple platforms. Multiple institutions including AltLayer, Amazon Web Services (AWS), CertiK, DAPPOS, Ethereum Foundation, Opentensor Foundation, Solana Foundation, and StraitsX have backed the launch of OKX AI.

Investment bank Jefferies stated in a recent report that the U.S. CLARITY Act still faces major legislative hurdles in the Senate, and progress on the related legislation in the coming weeks could intensify volatility in the crypto market. Jefferies noted that although the bill previously passed the Senate Banking Committee with a bipartisan vote of 15 to 9, with only around 20 legislative days remaining until Congress’s August recess, the Senate still needs to complete bill reconciliation, procedural votes, coordination with the House of Representatives’ version, and submission to the president for signing—leaving very little time. Polymarket data shows the probability of the bill passing by the end of 2026 has dropped to 48% from 70% in mid-May. Jefferies believes that if the bill is enacted smoothly, it will establish a clear regulatory framework for digital assets, pushing banks, asset management institutions, and exchanges to accelerate their deployment of tokenized assets, custody, staking, lending, and other businesses, while spurring more crypto ETFs and crypto infrastructure companies to go public via IPOs. If legislation is delayed, it could prolong regulatory uncertainty, leading traditional financial institutions to slow their advancement of blockchain-related operations. The report forecasts that the bill’s progress will continue to impact the market performance of crypto-related stocks including Circle (CRCL), Coinbase (COIN), and Bullish (BLSH), as well as select crypto assets. Jefferies also pointed out that in the long term, compared with regulatory changes, stablecoin issuer Circle faces a greater challenge from competition with banks, fintech firms, and payment companies.

Binance announced in a statement that to expand trading options and enhance user trading experience, Binance Futures will launch two U-margined perpetual contracts: The BTCU U-margined perpetual contract will go live at 09:00 UTC on July 1 with a maximum leverage of 100x; the ETHU U-margined perpetual contract will launch at 10:00 UTC on July 1, also with a maximum leverage of 100x. Both contracts use U as the settlement asset, with funding rates settled every 8 hours, a funding rate cap of ±0.375%, and support for multi-asset mode and copy trading features. Binance noted that it will dynamically adjust contract parameters including funding rates, maximum leverage, and margin requirements based on market risk conditions.

Nonprofit organization Sovright, founded by former members of Zcash’s original developer Electric Coin Company (ECC) governance team, has launched wallet recovery tool Argos to help early Zcash users retrieve assets from shielded addresses that became inaccessible after ZEC Wallet Lite ceased maintenance in 2022. Sovright Executive Chair Michelle Lai stated that users holding the original wallet mnemonic phrase can recover funds via Argos. While the exact number of affected addresses is unconfirmed, the involved funds are estimated to be substantial, primarily impacting Zcash’s early and long-term users. In addition to Argos, Sovright recently launched a testnet version of its Sovright Mining Pool, designed to help individual miners participate in mining and address Zcash’s overly concentrated hash rate issue. Sovright was established following a prior governance dispute between ECC and Zcash’s governance body Bootstrap. All former ECC staff left to form for-profit Zcash Open Development Lab (ZODL), while three former Bootstrap board members founded Sovright to continue advancing Zcash’s ecosystem on a nonprofit basis.