Risk-on Summer

Here’s what’s happening today

TL;DR:

• Bitcoin blazed through multiple new all-time highs, reaching as high as $118,667
• Solana memecoin launchpad pumpfun acquired wallet tracker Kolscan
• Crypto mining firm BIT Mining announced expansion to Solana, including up to $300M SOL treasury
• Robinhood's tokenized stocks aren’t stocks [Issue #3 of Real World — our new weekly newsletter on stablecoins and tokenization]
• The Stellar development roadmap paves way for expansion and network scalability [SPONSORED]

Let’s get into it

Animal spirits have returned and markets are soaring on the back of Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” with stocks cruising to new all-time highs and crypto exploding on the assumption of the U.S. dollar’s devaluation.

After one week of lag time, investors are now scrambling to find the safest place to store their capital, with the U.S. debt ceiling set to be raised by $5 trillion, implying massive government spending and money printing over the next few years.

The exuberance in the stock market was boosted by the president’s post on Truth Social yesterday where he said: “Tech Stocks, Industrial Stocks, & NASDAQ, HIT ALL-TIME, RECORD HIGHS! CRYPTO, ‘Through the Roof.’”

While stocks and an initial jump in Bitcoin acted as the spark, yesterday’s move was assisted by forced buying, and marked the largest single day short liquidation since 2021.

Bulls are calling for a “risk-on summer,” fueled by institutional capital that is swiftly abandoning their tariff-fueled wall of worry for a post-COVID style market environment. Despite the big week, summer illiquidity may limit the amount of days we experience similar to yesterday, but this week’s movements indicate directional guidance for the rest of the year.

This week also marked the long-awaited return of $3,000 ETH, which reached its highest price since February today. The move is led by strong Ethereum ETF inflows, a growing narrative surrounding Ethereum’s role in the stablecoin and payments ecosystem, and ETH treasury companies, such as SharpLink, aggressively accumulating ETH.

ETH 7-day price chart. Source: CoinGecko

Yesterday also hinted at a potential return of retail capital, based on large-cap assets that outperformed. Outside of BTC, ETH, and SOL, the other notable gainers in the top-20 were none other than the four horsemen of the retail investor: DOGE, XRP, XLM and ADA.

Enjoy the weekend, don't get rekt,

Squiffs, staff reporter at The Defiant

Read more below! But first, please give our sponsors some love; they make this newsletter possible.

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Soul is the New Primitive That Aims to Solve Liquidity Fragmentation

DeFi is evolving rapidly and maturing, entering a new phase of adoption and growth. With both established protocols like Aave and new entrants driving innovation in capital efficiency and market design. However, liquidity fragmentation across chains and protocols remains a core limitation, particularly in the lending sector.

Soul’s new DeFi primitive addresses this by enabling cross-chain lending coordination, using LayerZero’s messaging infrastructure to allow users to borrow across chains and protocols while keeping collateral in one place. Built by the team behind Hatom, a 2-year-old secure and mature lending protocol, Soul aims to become a foundational layer in a new phase of interoperable and composable DeFi.

Read more: Solving major DeFi problems: Soul new primitive to finally solve liquidity fragmentation

Money is Infrastructure: Unlocking the Future of Stablecoins with Luca Prosperi

Watch the full interview on YouTube here.

📈 Markets in the last 24 hrs:

	TICKER	VALUE	24H
	Bitcoin	$117,568	6.05 %
	Ethereum	$2,990.43	7.44 %
	XRP	$2.69	9.99 %
	BNB	$690.08	2.80 %
	Solana	$165.4	4.70 %

MessariPortals	MINDSHARE Rank	MINDSHARE % Change (7d)
	MINDSHARE Rank	MINDSHARE % Change (7d)
		-10.53%
		-3.66%
		15.12%
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🎬WATCH

On the latest episode of The Defiant Podcast, The Defiant founder Cami Russo sat down with Vlad Tenev, co-founder and CEO of Robinhood, in Cannes to explore the firm’s recently announced major crypto moves, including bringing tokenized U.S. stocks to the EU and launching its own Ethereum L2 with Arbitrum tech.

From tokenized private shares to the long-term vision of blockchain adoption, Vlad shares insights on regulation, innovation, and the battle between Robinhood and Coinbase.

That’s it for today — if you enjoyed this newsletter, tell your friends! https://thedefiant.io/subscribe