Huobi HTX has launched perpetual contracts for CRWD and NES, and kicked off a contract trading campaign.

The UK government has unveiled a new political donation reform plan, proposing to extend the ￡100,000 cap on overseas donations to the first year after a donor becomes a UK resident, and raise scrutiny standards for corporate political donations to further restrict foreign funds flowing into UK politics. The new rules build on the March ban on crypto political donations and are expected to be submitted to Parliament for final review next week. Analysts believe the new rules may impact the political donation capacity of Reform UK’s key crypto industry backers. Among them, Christopher Harborne—an investor holding approximately 12% of Tether’s equity—has donated around ￡12 million to Reform UK and is registered as a UK voter; Ben Delo, co-founder of BitMEX, has donated roughly ￡4 million and stated he plans to return to the UK to settle, meaning his political donations in the first year after his return will likely be subject to the ￡100,000 cap. Reports note that the relevant donations were not made in cryptocurrency, and Reform UK stated all donations comply with current regulations. Meanwhile, party leader Nigel Farage is facing further investigation over alleged failure to declare non-cash support provided by supporter George Cottrell.

According to Hyperinsight monitoring, an address starting with 0x0ad opened a long position in SKHX (SK Hynix) during the weekend when U.S. stock markets were closed. Using approximately $2.72 million in margin and 3x leverage, it went long on 5,095 SKHX contracts. As of press time, the address’s position is valued at around $7.8 million; against the backdrop of today’s overall decline in South Korean stocks, this whale is currently sitting on an unrealized loss of about $370,000 (-13%), and has become the largest long holder of SKHX on Hyperliquid. Additionally, this whale opened a long position in MU during the same period, using roughly $2.12 million in margin and 4x leverage to go long on 5,095 MU contracts. As of press time, this position is valued at approximately $8.27 million, with an unrealized loss of around $297,000 (-11%).

Binance announced it will delist all leveraged trading pairs for TST (Test) and IOTX (IoTeX) and terminate related lending services, effective July 10 at 10:00 UTC. Per the announcement, the exchange will suspend leveraged borrowing functions for the two tokens at 10:00 UTC on July 7. Starting at 10:00 UTC on July 10, Binance will close all related isolated and cross margin leveraged positions, automatically settle outstanding liabilities, cancel pending orders, and remove the corresponding leveraged trading pairs. Meanwhile, Flexible Loan and VIP Loan will automatically close all outstanding lending positions involving TST and IOTX.

Coinbase pushed an AI-generated "breaking news" alert to users, claiming Norway beat Brazil 3-2 and Erling Haaland scored a brace, but the notification was sent before the match had even started, sparking user skepticism. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said the company had launched an investigation, and Coinbase later confirmed it had fixed the issue and updated its systems to prevent similar AI-generated content errors from recurring. Max Branzburg, Coinbase’s head of consumer and business products, noted that AI-powered 24/7 market news has potential but still needs further accuracy improvements. Notably, the actual final score of the match was Norway 2-1 Brazil, with Haaland scoring two goals, but the AI alert contained errors in both the score and its release timing. The incident comes as Coinbase continues to expand its prediction markets business; this year, it has offered U.S. users event contracts for sports, elections, and macroeconomic events via Kalshi, and views prediction markets as a key component of its strategy to build a "one-stop trading platform."

According to Bit.com market data, US-listed cryptocurrency-related stocks rose broadly in pre-market trading, with individual performances as follows: MSTR up 2.78%, COIN up 1.81%, CRCL up 3.31%, SBET up 2.64%, BMNR up 3.90%, and PURR up 4.35%.

Digital asset infrastructure firm Ripple announced it has obtained a Cryptocurrency Asset Service Provider (CASP) license from Luxembourg’s financial regulator (CSSF), completing its regulatory authorization under the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework, enabling it to offer crypto asset services across all 30 European Economic Area (EEA) countries. This formal authorization follows Ripple’s receipt of a principle approval in June this year, signifying that its compliant crypto payment products for financial institutions, enterprises, and commercial clients are now available across the entire EEA. Cassie Craddock, Ripple’s Managing Director for UK and Europe, stated that the CASP license means the firm is fully compliant with MiCA requirements and ready to expand its European operations in the post-transition period. The CASP license also supplements Ripple’s existing EU Electronic Money Institution (EMI) license. To date, Ripple holds over 75 regulatory licenses globally, and obtained crypto asset registration from the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in January this year. MiCA’s final transition period ended on July 1, with the EU officially replacing member states’ individual crypto licensing regimes with a unified regulatory framework. According to data released by the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) on July 3, 280 institutions have obtained CASP authorization so far. Ripple becomes another major crypto firm to receive formal MiCA authorization, following Kraken, Coinbase, OKX, and Crypto.com. In contrast, Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, withdrew its Greek license application before the July 1 deadline and has not yet obtained MiCA authorization.