Triple-Digit Gains Put Altcoins Back in the Game

Altcoins came alive this week with a breakout that traders couldn’t ignore. 

Behind the charts, payments and AI are quietly reshaping adoption, lawmakers are pushing closer to clear crypto rules, and new data is forcing investors to question which networks are actually delivering value.

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Market-Moving News

The market’s biggest story this week wasn’t price—it was progress. New trends are turning crypto from a niche bet into real infrastructure.

Meanwhile, political momentum is shifting from talk to action, and cracks are starting to show in projects that aren’t pulling their weight.

Markets

Payments and AI Drive 2025 Crypto Adoption, Survey Finds

Payments and artificial intelligence emerged as the two strongest catalysts for crypto adoption in 2025, according to a Reown-YouGov survey.

Thirty-seven percent of respondents cited them as key drivers, with payments showing significant year-over-year growth.

Thirty-four percent of participants reported active engagement with crypto payments, surpassing DeFi activities like farming and staking.

However, trading still dominates as the most common on-chain activity.

Twenty-seven percent expect payments to become the leading on-chain use case in the next three to five years.

This signals growing confidence in crypto's ability to support real-world utility.

Reown CEO Jess Houlgrave said payments and AI solve "different layers of the same problem."

She noted payments bring real-world demand, while AI improves user experience and trust.

AI is improving personalization, fraud detection, and developer efficiency. Payments, meanwhile, are becoming critical for real-world use cases like remittances and gig payouts.

The survey found 14% of participants are most excited about payments going forward. Stablecoin ownership also rose to 38%, overtaking Solana's 37% share.

Younger users drive stablecoin adoption, with 51% of 18–34-year-olds holding them. Reown said users want multichain, embedded UX for seamless transacting.

For investors, the growing focus on payments and stablecoins signals a shift toward practical use cases and mainstream adoption.

Projects improving real-world payments or leveraging AI-enhanced UX may see sustained demand, but trading still rules the market's short-term narrative.

Policy

Senate Republicans Push Crypto Market Structure Bill as Momentum Builds 

US Senate Republicans released a draft crypto market structure bill, signaling closer alignment with House legislation.

The proposal, led by Tim Scott and Cynthia Lummis, builds on the CLARITY Act passed last week.

The draft, called the Responsible Financial Innovation Act, aims to provide clearer rules for digital assets. Scott said it shares the House's goal of creating a consistent regulatory framework.

The bill suggests amending disclosure requirements under the Securities Act of 1933. Lawmakers argue existing securities laws are outdated for modern digital assets.

The Senate draft includes rules for "ancillary assets," defining which digital assets are not securities. It also promotes SEC-CFTC collaboration for regulating crypto transactions.

The CLARITY Act already passed the House with bipartisan support, including votes from over 70 Democrats. Only the GENIUS Act has been signed into law so far.

Scott and Lummis expect a vote before October, though debates could delay progress. Republicans hold only a slim majority in the Senate.

For investors, growing legislative alignment suggests crypto policy is finally maturing.

Clearer rules could attract institutional players, but regulatory shifts will take time, and near-term volatility may follow any major policy changes.

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On-chain Activity

Disguised Unemployment Hits Ethereum, Solana as Inactive Protocols Pile Up 

A new report reveals most Ethereum and Solana protocols are not generating revenue, raising concerns about economic inefficiency.

DeFiLlama data shows 88% of Ethereum's 1,271 protocols and 75% of Solana's 264 protocols produced no revenue in the past 30 days.

Analysts call this a form of "disguised unemployment," where projects exist but add little economic value. It mirrors ghost cities—built infrastructure without meaningful output.

Inactive contracts increase storage burdens because every smart contract remains on-chain forever. This adds to node storage and bandwidth requirements as networks scale.

Security risks also grow, as abandoned contracts can still contain vulnerabilities. Exploiting them could trigger systemic risks across active protocols.

Economically, inactive projects lock developer time and capital into non-productive assets. The report says this inefficiency drags on overall network productivity.

The user experience also suffers as newcomers sift through defunct protocols. This makes it harder to identify trustworthy and active projects.

For investors, the data highlights the need for careful project selection.

Revenue-generating protocols with proven utility may offer safer bets, while inactive ecosystems pose longer-term risks for scalability and value retention.

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Future Forward

The biggest shifts don't crash in with noise—they creep in quietly, where almost no one's looking. It's the subtle, overlooked signs that often flip the market on its head.

Ignore them, and you're stuck reacting after everyone else has moved. Spot them early, and you're ahead long before the crowd catches on.

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Crypto Know-How: What Are Crypto Futures?

Crypto futures are contracts that let you agree to buy or sell a cryptocurrency at a set price on a future date.

You're not buying the actual coins—you're betting on where the price will go.

Traders use futures to profit from both rising and falling markets. If you think Bitcoin will go up, you can go "long"; if you think it will drop, you can go "short."

Futures also allow leverage, meaning you can trade with more money than you actually have. But this makes them risky—profits can multiply fast, but so can losses.

They're popular with experienced traders for hedging or speculation, but not ideal for beginners. If you try them, start small and understand the risks before jumping in.

That's it for today—but the market never stops. The next big move could already be building where no one's paying attention.

Everything Else

• Ozzy Osbourne's death triggered a 400% floor price jump and a 100,000% volume surge in his CryptoBatz NFTs, sparking talk of a potential NFT market rebound.

• Bitcoin miner MARA Holdings plans to raise $850 million through 0% convertible notes to buy more BTC, repay debt, and expand infrastructure, potentially pushing its BTC holdings beyond 50,000 coins.

• The US DOJ moved to return $7.1 million in crypto to victims of a $97 million oil and gas fraud, using blockchain tracing to follow funds through 19 wallets and multiple international exchanges.

• Solana's first US-listed staking ETF, SSK, surpassed $100 million in AUM in just 12 days, signaling growing Wall Street demand for yield-based crypto investment products.

• Altcoins now make up 71% of Binance Futures' $100 billion daily trading volume, fueling claims of an ongoing "selective altseason" as capital rotates away from Bitcoin.