Foresight News brings you a quick overview of this week's hot topics and recommended content:
01 Base Upgrade
(Base Major Upgrade: Coinbase's Blockchain Ambitions)
(Coinbase's stock price is about to hit new highs, are Americans about to use their pensions to 'trade crypto'?)
02 Progress of America's 'Crypto Week'
(Washington 'Crypto Week': How will the implementation of these bills rewrite the fate of cryptocurrencies?)
(Trump is anxious! Why does America dislike central bank digital currencies so much?)
03 Running Conference Guide
(2025 Second Half Web3 'Running Conference' Guide)
04 Ethereum
(Is Bitcoin no longer attractive? Four listed companies bet on Ethereum's 'money-making' new strategy)
(Envisioning Ethereum 2030: The World Ledger Path of Parallel Rollup Tracks)
05 Industry Insights
(Bitcoin hits new highs, but you may not realize your assets are naturally heading towards zero)
(The SPAC frenzy: Why do Bitcoin treasury companies prefer SPACs?)
(Crypto perpetual contracts are booming, why haven't options kept up?)
01 Base Upgrade
On July 17, Beijing time, Base officially held the A New Day One event, redefining the possibilities of the Web3 ecosystem with a complete rebranding, ecological architecture expansion, from a super application that aggregates functions to covering multiple fields. Recommended articles:
(Base Major Upgrade: Coinbase's Blockchain Ambitions)
Base is no longer limited to a single chain positioning but has upgraded to an open stack encompassing layer, tool, and super application layers, injecting comprehensive vitality into the ecosystem through three-layer collaboration. The three stacks are:
-Base Chain: With Flashblocks launching on Base today, Base will reduce effective block time from 2 seconds to 200 milliseconds, increasing the speed of Base Chain by 10 times. This breakthrough makes Base Chain an ideal choice for high-frequency applications, real-time interactive games, and instant payments. Currently, Flashblocks has been opened to developers, paving the way for building high-performance Web3 applications.
-Base Build: Providing developers with a one-stop tool kit to simplify the development process of on-chain applications. This includes a new Base Build dashboard that will help teams build, grow, and monetize their mini-programs.
-Base App: Coinbase Wallet has been renamed to Base App, upgrading from a single wallet to a super application that integrates on-chain interaction, payment, and social features. Base App is currently available for users to join the access list.
BTC new highs and ETH surges lead to significant increases in US stocks like Coinbase Global (COIN). Recommended articles:
(Coinbase's stock price is about to hit new highs, are Americans about to use their pensions to 'trade crypto'?)
Coinbase Global (COIN) stock price reached a high of $415.96 this week, just a stone's throw away from its historical high of $429. Three months ago, its stock price was as low as $142. As the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, Coinbase's revenue for 2024 has doubled to $6.6 billion. Although there was a significant decline in Q1 this year, the earnings in the crypto market may rebound in Q2, leading to improved revenue performance.
02 Progress of America's 'Crypto Week'
On July 17, local time, the House passed three major crypto bills (GENIUS Act), (CLARITY Act), and (Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act) on the final day. On July 18, Trump officially signed the stablecoin-related bill (GENIUS Act) at the White House, marking the implementation phase of US stablecoin regulatory legislation. How will the implementation of these bills rewrite the fate of cryptocurrencies? Recommended articles:
(Washington 'Crypto Week': How will the implementation of these bills rewrite the fate of cryptocurrencies?)
The logic of growth is evident and widely discussed. Clear cryptocurrency legislation will better incentivize large financial institutions to engage in the cryptocurrency space, bringing billions of dollars of investment to crypto assets and guiding trillions of dollars of traditional assets onto the blockchain track. If you've ever wondered what would happen if JPMorgan, BNY Mellon, and Nasdaq could freely develop in the cryptocurrency space, you are about to find out.
But I believe the greater development of this legislation is its impact on risk and how it will change the way future crypto assets are traded.
Although the bill was finally passed, the process was fraught with twists and turns, and the cryptocurrency bill was once stuck in procedural voting in the House. Recommended articles:
(Trump is anxious! Why does America dislike central bank digital currencies so much?)
However, the reason that the House did not complete a series of cryptocurrency bill voting plans according to script may be that the GENIUS stablecoin bill is not the center of conflict. Before the meeting, the White House's AI and cryptocurrency director, 'crypto czar' David Sacks, made a sudden statement that is quite intriguing. He clearly stated that the Trump administration plans to ban the issuance of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).
It can be seen that the Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act may be the real battleground for both parties.
03 Running Conference Guide
In a favorable environment of multiple policies, the crypto industry is showing vigorous vitality. In the second half of 2025, a series of important blockchain and Web3 offline summits will be held globally, providing rare communication opportunities for industry participants. Recommended articles:
(2025 Second Half Web3 'Running Conference' Guide)
This article outlines the most influential blockchain events in the next six months, covering major regions such as Asia, Europe, North America, and the Middle East. From Blockchain Week focused on Ethereum, Bitcoin, and Solana to specialized summits, there is something for everyone. Starting with Malaysia's Blockchain Week, and continuing to the year's end with India's Blockchain Week and the Solana Breakpoint event, there are heavyweight summits every month.
Notably, the trend of past summits concentrating in September has shifted to October, with higher activity density. Foresight News's Event section will continue to update information on related activities at major summits, and it is recommended to bookmark this article for future reference.
04 Ethereum
This week, Ethereum's price surged over 21% due to positive news from the US crypto regulatory bill passing, breaking through $3600, reaching a new high since January this year. At the same time, nine Ethereum ETFs saw a net inflow of over $900 million in a week, accelerating institutional capital entry and boosting market sentiment. Among them, these four listed companies bet on Ethereum reserves; they do not simply hoard coins but use staking and other strategies to make capital grow. Recommended articles:
(Is Bitcoin no longer attractive? Four listed companies bet on Ethereum's 'money-making' new strategy)
Unlike many Bitcoin reserve companies that heavily rely on convertible bonds and leverage (see Galaxy's latest research report), the four leading Ethereum reserve companies—SharpLink, BitMine, Bit Digital, and GameSquare—are entirely financed through equity issuance for Ethereum reserves. This means they do not have to bear the pressure of debt maturity or interest payment obligations, and there is no default risk even if the cryptocurrency market declines. The non-leveraged model significantly reduces systemic vulnerabilities and avoids refinancing and equity dilution risks brought by deeply in-the-money convertible bonds.
The key is that these Ethereum reserve strategies introduce a structural innovation: productive capital. By staking Ethereum, these companies can not only earn the typical 3%-5% native protocol yield but also directly contribute to the security and stability of the Ethereum network. The higher the amount of Ethereum staked by enterprises, the more stable and predictable the network validator ecosystem becomes, thus forming a long-term synergy between enterprise capital and protocol health.
In fact, as of July 9, the amount of Ethereum staked reached a historical peak (over 35 million, accounting for more than 30% of the total supply), and the rise of Ethereum reserve companies may be one of the significant reasons driving this trend.
Where will Ethereum go in 2030? In this Rollup technology divide, how will the vision of a world ledger become reality? Recommended articles:
(Envisioning Ethereum 2030: The World Ledger Path of Parallel Rollup Tracks)
As Rollup technology matures, economic activity will form layers based on the trade-off between 'required security' and 'cost of obtaining security.' Scenarios that cannot bear settlement or governance risks, such as institutional-level DeFi, large on-chain treasuries, and high-value collateral markets, may concentrate on chains inheriting Ethereum's complete security guarantees and neutrality (or Ethereum L1 itself). On the other end, applications aimed at the public (such as memes, trading, social, games, retail payments, etc.) will gather on chains with the best user experience and lowest costs, which may require customized throughput enhancement solutions or centralized ordering mechanisms. Therefore, those 'acceptable speed but not the fastest, reasonable security but not the best' general-purpose chains will gradually lose attractiveness. Especially by 2030, if cross-chain interoperability allows assets to flow freely between these two types of scenarios, the survival space in this intermediate zone will be even more limited.
05 Industry Insights
This Monday, Bitcoin briefly touched 120,000 USDT, continuing to create historical price highs. In this moment of rising market sentiment, social media spreads every story of overnight wealth, luring the public to fall into a massive, inevitable loss gamble like moths to a flame. Recommended articles:
(Bitcoin hits new highs, but you may not realize your assets are naturally heading towards zero)
Imagine you are participating in this coin toss game. How many times would you toss? The rules of this game are that if it's heads, your assets grow by 100%; if it's tails, your assets lose 60%.
At first glance, this game seems like a money printing machine. The expected value for each coin toss is a positive 20%, meaning that if you toss a coin once, your assets have a 20% expected growth. Theoretically, if you toss the coin enough times, you can accumulate the wealth of the entire world.
However, the reality is that if we simulate 25,000 people each tossing a coin 1,000 times, nearly everyone will end up at zero.
This is a different path from Strategy. Nowadays, a new wave of companies is eager to enjoy the dividends of Bitcoin without taking on the burden of building a physical business. They have no customers, no profit models, and no operational roadmaps. They only need a balance sheet filled with Bitcoin and a financial shortcut to quickly enter the public market. Thus, Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs) have emerged. Recommended articles:
(The SPAC frenzy: Why do Bitcoin treasury companies prefer SPACs?)
SPACs are pre-funded shell companies that raise funds from investors (usually a group of private investors), go public on a stock exchange, and then merge with a private company. They are often described as a shortcut to an IPO. In the cryptocurrency space, this is a way for companies heavily invested in Bitcoin to go public quickly to avoid adverse market sentiment or regulatory shifts, where speed is key.
In this market trend, why hasn't the cryptocurrency options market exploded? With Hyperliquid leading the narrative, on-chain perpetual contracts are once again hot, and stock perpetual contracts are about to launch, but what about options? Recommended articles:
(Crypto perpetual contracts are booming, why haven't options kept up?)
Decentralized exchanges for perpetual contracts solve the liquidity problem by completely eliminating fragmentation. All perpetual contracts for the same asset are identical: one deep pool, one funding rate, regardless of whether traders choose 2x or 100x leverage, liquidity is unified. Leverage only affects margin requirements, not market structure.
This design has led platforms like Hyperliquid to achieve significant success: their treasury typically acts as a counterparty to retail trades, distributing trading fees to treasury depositors.
In contrast, options disperse liquidity across thousands of 'micro-assets': each strike price - expiration date combination forms an independent market with unique characteristics, leading to fragmented capital that makes it almost impossible to achieve the depth required by mature traders. This is the core reason why on-chain options have not taken off. However, given the emerging liquidity on Hyperliquid, this situation may change soon.
