Autor Cointelegraph By Martin Young

Adjusted stablecoin transaction volume hit a record $1.79 trillion in June, up 63% from May’s $1.1 trillion, according to payments giant Visa.June’s record stablecoin transaction volume surpassed the previous record of $1.78 trillion in February, and is up 125% from the prior-year period, according to Visa’s Allium-powered stablecoin analytics dashboard. “June 2026 was another record month for stablecoin transaction volume, just ahead of February 2026,” said Zach Pandl, head of research at Grayscale, on Sunday. The sharp increase in stablecoin transaction volume suggests growing real-world use in payments, decentralized finance and cross-border transfers as crypto infrastructure matures. It comes despite a broader crypto bear market, suggesting that stablecoins have become a driving force in the industry. USDC has the lion’s share of volumeDespite Tether’s USDt being the largest stablecoin by market cap, the majority of the transaction volume, around 67%, was Circle’s USDC, with $1.21 trillion for the month. USDT accounted for around 32%, or $576 billion, according to Visa. PayPal’s PYUSD is the third-largest in terms of transaction volume, with $2.42 billion in June. There was just under $1.8 trillion in adjusted stablecoin transaction volume in June. Source: VisaThe most widely used network for stablecoin transactions in June was Coinbase’s Ethereum layer-2 network Base with $565 billion, or 31.5% of the total, closely followed by Ethereum with $562 billion. Tron was the third-highest with $320 billion, or about 18% of the total. Related: Revolut to delist USDT in August, citing regulatory and risk concernsVisa collaborated with Artemis, Allium Labs and Castle Island Ventures to develop an adjusted transaction methodology that filters out “distracting metrics” such as high-frequency trading bots, exchange treasury rebalancing and repeated smart contract transactions to help better approximate organic stablecoin activity, the company said. Base and Ethereum dominated stablecoin volumes in June. Source: VisaMeanwhile, another player has entered the crowded stablecoin market as Open Standard announced Open USD (OUSD) on Tuesday, with support from more than 140 payments, banking, technology and crypto companies, including Visa and Mastercard. Trend to continue as stablecoins matureNick Ruck, director of LVRG Research, told Cointelegraph that the record volume demonstrates the resilience of these assets amid the broader crypto bear market. “This surge underscores the growing role of stablecoins as essential infrastructure for value transfer, liquidity provision, and decentralized finance activity that persists independently of speculative price movements,” he said. Ruck predicted that the trend would continue with stablecoins “maturing into a foundational layer of the Web3 economy,” and are positioned for even greater reach as the market evolves.Magazine: AI is banking the unbanked in Africa… faster than crypto

European regulators and central bankers have warned that rulemaking cannot keep pace with rapid advances in agentic artificial intelligence and have called for guardrails to protect the financial system. Bank of England deputy governor Sarah Breeden is one of several central bankers who have said that agentic AI could amplify volatility during bouts of market stress.Breeden questioned if guardrails are needed, “analogous to circuit breakers or kill switches that would limit or stop trading market-wide if faulty AI models cause market meltdown,” she said at the European Central Bank’s annual meeting in Sintra, Portugal, on Tuesday.US companies are leading in AI investment and frontier model development, and Europe’s financial system gives it fewer capital channels into AI compared to the US equity markets. Regulating too cautiously could widen that gap further, as AI companies may seek out jurisdictions with lower compliance requirements.Cybersecurity and financial risk warnings European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde, in an interview with French outlet Les Echos on Thursday, warned that AI technology poses a “major risk.” “For about a decade now, we have been talking about cybersecurity risks, hacking, data theft, and so on,” Lagarde said. “But with the acceleration and deepening of AI models, we are confronted with a much more serious risk, because it is happening very, very quickly, and because the means of defense — and the funding required for them — have yet to be found.”Related: Anthropic to bring back Fable 5 as US lifts export controlsMeanwhile, Nikhil Rathi, CEO of the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority, told CNBC’s Squawk Box on Thursday that traditional regulation cycles don’t work in an era of fast-moving AI development.“Technology moves incredibly fast, and we need to think differently about some of the innovations that we are seeing on AI,” Rathi said.“The reality is some of these technologies now move in weeks or months, and the traditional cycle of rulemaking simply doesn’t work in that way, so we need to think about new tools and a different way of working with the market in a more collaborative way.” Central bankers, especially in Europe, have raised the same red flags about crypto, claiming that it could disrupt the traditional financial system. Bankers warn of AI boom-bust riskThe Bank for International Settlements warned on June 28 that AI “exuberance” could have major financial consequences.If central banks tighten policy to contain inflation, this could precipitate a “sharp pullback in [AI] asset prices after a prolonged period of exuberant risk-taking,” which could trigger “disruptive macro-financial feedback loops,” the BIS said. Breeden said that debt financing was rising rapidly. “We therefore judged that the financial stability consequences of any fall in AI-related asset prices could well increase,” she said. Meanwhile, Tobias Adrian, Director of the IMF’s Monetary and Capital Markets Department, said in an interview with Bloomberg on June 30 that there is a “potential maturity mismatch in between the duration of the physical assets and the duration of the debt.”Magazine: AI is banking the unbanked in Africa… faster than crypto

French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez has promised a “more ambitious” approach to tackling crypto ransom attacks after confirming there were 77 kidnapping, extortion or attempted extortion incidents linked to crypto in the first half of 2026. Nuñez said Tuesday that the 77 incidents recorded so far this year are up sharply from the 45 recorded in all of 2025, according to local outlet BFM Business.“These are serious matters, and your concern is legitimate,” he told the Association for the Development of Digital Assets (ADAN) as he promised more government support.France has become one of the biggest hot spots for crypto wrench attacks, where criminals use physical violence to coerce victims into handing over crypto. Approximately 11% of French people own cryptocurrencies, according to ADAN, which equates to about 7.3 million people. France’s rapid alert and protection system Earlier this year, French authorities launched a dedicated prevention platform and a rapid-alert and protection system for crypto holders and professionals, which has attracted 724 sign-ups so far, Nuñez said.Nuñez said that emergency measures have resulted in 200 arrests, with one recent attacker being arrested within eight hours on Friday, thanks in part to the victim using an emergency identification hotline.Related: StarkWare introduces ‘Private KYC’ to address personal data breachesNuñez promised a “more ambitious” three-part plan to reinforce security measures for the crypto sector. This includes stronger intelligence-sharing, since criminal networks are often based abroad, a deeper partnership with ADAN and better operational coordination between security services. French wrench attacks on the riseBlockchain security firm CertiK reported in May that wrench attacks globally were up 41% in the first four months of 2026, compared with the same period last year, with most attacks in Europe. The firm said France is the “epicenter” of attacks because of the presence of several flagship industry companies and their executives, a “culture of flexing and voluntary doxxing that remains deeply embedded in the community,” and proven exposure from numerous sensitive data leaks.David Balland, co-founder of French hardware wallet maker Ledger, was kidnapped and held for ransom along with his partner in January 2025 before being rescued by police. Ledger suffered one of the industry’s most damaging data breaches when its customer database was hacked in 2020, resulting in the leak of more than 270,000 personal records and a wave of phishing and wrench attacks that continue to this day. “France ranks among the most targeted countries in the world for this type of breach,” CertiK said.Europe is becoming a hotbed for wrench attacks in 2026. Source: CertiKMagazine: Bitcoin slides to $58K, XRP hits $1 but onchain data promising: Market Moves

Bitcoin could face further downside pressure after ending June below its 200-week moving average but above its realized price, a combination that crypto analyst PlanB says suggests the market has yet to reach a bear market bottom.Bitcoin fell 20.5% in June to close the month at $58,526 — its worst monthly performance since June 2022 — below its 200-week moving average of $62,000 but above its realized price of $52,000.“ALL previous bear market bottoms were below realized price,” said PlanB, the creator of the stock-to-flow pricing model, on Wednesday, adding in a separate post that Bitcoin could drop to $52,000.The price move would mean Bitcoin falling about 60% from its all-time high of $126,000 in October. The dip could be even deeper, as previous bear markets have seen Bitcoin fall even further, such as 83% in 2018 and 76% in 2022.BTC is undervalued but can still go lower“Right now, price is much lower than value and indeed might go lower from here (below realized),” PlanB said. “So, Bitcoin is undervalued but can still go lower.”BTC is trading between the 200-week moving average and the realized price. Source: PlanB Bitcoin’s realized price is the aggregate cost basis of all coins in circulation, calculated by valuing each unspent transaction output (UTXO) at the price when it last moved on-chain. It represents the average price at which holders acquired their coins, serving as a key onchain metric for support levels during bear markets.Related: Bitcoin bounces off 21-month low, but leverage data signals caution: Was $57K the bottom?Andri Fauzan Adziima, research lead at Bitrue Research Institute, told Cointelegraph that the June close above realized price but below the 200-week moving average “signals the bear bottom is still ahead per prior cycles.”“I’m eyeing late-2026 capitulation there before the next leg up, though shallower this cycle due to institutions,” he said.Lacie Zhang, research analyst at Bitget Wallet, told Cointelegraph that the current consolidation near $60,000 is “approaching a potential bottom zone, with strong historical and technical support likely forming around the $55,000 level if further downside occurs.”Midterm year market bottomITC Crypto founder Benjamin Cowen also speculated there could be a cycle bottom for Bitcoin this year, given it is a US midterm election year. This has previously coincided with bear market bottoms in 2018 and 2022.  “The second half of midterm years usually marks the accumulation zone/market cycle bottom,” he said.The US midterms are scheduled for Nov. 3, when all House of Representatives seats and about a third of Senate seats are up for election.Magazine: Bitcoin slides to $58K, XRP hits $1 but onchain data promising: Market Moves

Artificial intelligence company Anthropic is set to restore public access to its most powerful AI models, Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5, weeks after they were pulled offline under a directive from the US government. Anthropic’s two latest models have been restricted from public access since June 12, when the government applied export controls following a report in which researchers bypassed Fable 5’s safeguards, forcing Anthropic to pull all access to the models immediately. The government lifted those restrictions on Wednesday, stated Anthropic. “After a series of productive conversations with the US government, we’re redeploying the model with a new set of classifiers to target and block more cybersecurity tasks,” Anthropic said. The suspension of the models raised concerns about state control over frontier AI technology and set a dangerous precedent, according to experts and technologists. The export controls also highlighted White House concerns about a potential national cybersecurity threat if these powerful models were jailbroken and used for malicious purposes. Getting best tech deployed remains priority US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said on X on Wednesday, “Over the past two weeks, we have worked closely with Anthropic to analyze and approve Fable 5 to ensure alignment across the US Government and to strengthen America’s leadership in AI.” Meanwhile, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles said on X that government priority remains to “get the best [AI] tech deployed as quickly and safely as possible.”Related: AI researcher claims he’s already bypassed Anthropic’s Fable 5 guardrailsThe restrictions came after the government became aware of a report in which Amazon researchers found a method of bypassing Fable 5’s safeguards, prompting the model to identify several software vulnerabilities. In a blog post, Anthropic argued this wasn’t a risk unique to Fable 5, as weaker models could also identify the same vulnerabilities and produce the same exploit.AI jailbreak classifications proposed Anthropic has also begun drafting a consensus framework with Amazon, Microsoft, Google and other partners in its Project Glasswing — a collaboration announced in April to safeguard against AI cybersecurity threats — for “assessing the severity of AI jailbreaks.”Anthropic’s cybersecurity safety classifiers and how jailbreaks interact with safety classifiers. Source: AnthropicThe company is also scaling up collaboration with the US government on AI model testing and safeguards. “This will include pre-release access to models and safeguards for evaluation, information sharing on jailbreaks and misuse, and dedicated resources for joint research,” it stated.A well-known AI researcher claimed to have jailbroken Fable 5 within 48 hours of its launch in June, before the government restrictions, and shared screenshots showing how he bypassed the model’s safety guardrails.  Magazine: AI is banking the unbanked in Africa… faster than crypto