Week in review: bitcoin sets new records and a muddle over TON ‘golden visas’

Bitcoin set a fresh record above $119,000, the Pump.fun team held a token sale, the UAE denied issuing “golden visas” for TON staking, a hacker returned stolen assets to GMX, and other highlights of the week.

The road to a record

The first cryptocurrency began Monday firming around $109,000. Through midweek it traded in a tight range, failing to break resistance.

A decisive move came on the evening of 9 July, with bitcoin climbing in less than an hour to $112,000, bringing it close to its previous all-time high (ATH).

The next day the digital gold set a new high above $113,000, but that proved only the first step. Overnight on 10–11 July the asset rewrote its ATH, briefly touching $118,869 (on Binance).

On Sunday evening bitcoin set another high at $119,376.

At the time of writing, the coin trades near the peak around $118,700, up about 9% on the week.

Amid the digital gold’s rally, other large-cap assets also advanced, some outpacing the bellwether in percentage terms.

Ethereum rose 18%, breaking above $3,000 amid record ETF inflows.

XRP added 24%, DOGE — 21%.

The crypto fear-and-greed index remains in the “greed” zone at 74.

Total crypto market capitalisation reached $3.77 trillion; BTC dominance stands at 62.4%.

The PUMP token sale

On 12 July the much-anticipated sale of Pump.fun’s PUMP token took place. The event ran as an initial coin offering (ICO) on major centralised exchanges.

Per the tokenomics, total supply is 1 trillion PUMP. The public sale placed 15% (150bn tokens) at $0.004.

The Saturday ICO sold out in 12 minutes. The team raised $600 million. 

the $PUMP public sale has now ended.

we are delighted to reveal that the $PUMP public sale was able to sell out in only 12 minutes.

we would like to thank our entire community for participating!

the $PUMP tokens will now enter the distribution phase 👇🏻 pic.twitter.com/uqhQwRkL4f

— pump.fun (@pumpdotfun) July 12, 2025

Bybit said that due to an unforeseen API delay the offer became oversubscribed. The platform pledged to recheck the final allocation and refund users who did not make the sale list. 

No firm launch timeline for PUMP has been disclosed.

On Hyperliquid’s pre-market the token trades above the ICO price — around $0.006. 

However, on-chain data show that many large traders are shorting PUMP.

Moreover, the sale coincided with the emergence of a rival platform on Solana — LetsBonk. On 8 July the launchpad overtook Pump.fun by daily revenue and by number of tokens launched.  

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A visa for staking TON

At the end of last week TON Foundation announced a programme to obtain a 10‑year UAE “golden visa”. To take part, investors were invited to stake Toncoin (TON) worth $100,000 and pay a $35,000 fee.

The post was also reposted by Telegram CEO Pavel Durov. However, several local regulators, including the Federal Authority for Identity, Citizenship, Customs and Port Security, the Securities and Commodities Authority and Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA), denied the claim.

Authorities noted that “golden visas” are granted based on clearly defined criteria and are available to real-estate investors, entrepreneurs, scientists, talented students and other categories not related to digital assets.

VARA separately noted that TON is not licensed by, and is not regulated by, the authority.

Programme representatives insisted on its legitimacy but removed the related posts. The initiative envisaged locking tokens for three years with an annual yield of about 3–4%. The organisers promised visa approval within seven weeks.

Later TON Foundation clarified that the project is not connected with the country’s government, and that awarding UAE “golden visas” for staking is a private initiative.

Foundation representatives added that applying does not guarantee issuance of a visa; the decision rests with state authorities. If the project receives official backing in future, that will be announced separately.

Stole, then returned

On 9 July on-chain researchers recorded suspicious outflows from addresses linked to the GMX decentralised exchange (DEX). The platform later confirmed a hack. 

Total losses came to about $42m. The GLP pool on GMX V1 on Arbitrum was targeted.

After the incident the GMX team sent the attacker an on-chain message offering to return the funds for a 10% bounty. The perpetrator soon accepted the terms.

They sent two tranches of 5.5m FRAX and 5m FRAX to the DEX address. Later the hacker returned about 9,000 ETH (~$27m) more.

According to GMX’s report, the protocol suffered from a re‑entrancy vulnerability in the OrderBook contract. This allowed the attacker to manipulate bitcoin’s price and withdraw liquidity at a profit. 

After the attack the native GMX token fell from $14 to $10, but recovered to $13 after the funds were returned.

Also on ForkLog:

• Vitalik Buterin proposed a way to improve Ethereum’s security.
• Bitcoin-linked corruption in Russia was estimated at 13.5bn roubles.
• Experts named the assets that will benefit from tokenisation.
• Miner BIT Mining moved to the Solana ecosystem.

Jack Dorsey’s Bluetooth chat

Block’s CEO Jack Dorsey presented a beta version of the decentralised messenger Bitchat, which works over Bluetooth without an internet connection.

The developer likened the new app to late‑1990s IRC chats.

Bitchat is a fully decentralised network with no central servers. Registration does not require accounts, email or a phone number. Messages are stored only in device memory and do not end up in a central database. End‑to‑end encryption provides additional security.

Each device in Bitchat acts as both client and relay. Messages can hop between gadgets to reach distant users. Bluetooth’s range is 30 metres, and separate network clusters are bridged by relay nodes. Large messages are split into 500‑byte fragments.

In a comment to ForkLog, NoOnes CEO Ray Youssef said such tools provide a new level of resilience, especially in regions where traditional communications are unreliable, limited or heavily censored and controlled.

“This kind of technology is directly related to expanding access to financial services and digital technologies. It is not about competing with traditional applications, but about creating alternatives for communities where traditional infrastructure is not always available or where bureaucratic systems create friction,” he added.

Youssef noted some risks associated with using a Bluetooth network, but added that the point is not to eliminate vulnerabilities but to give people more tools and choice.

“In areas with strong infrastructure, people will stick with ordinary apps. But for those facing outages, travel or local restrictions, having a decentralised backup option is incredibly valuable. The beauty of peer‑to‑peer tools is that they scale easily because people use them where they are needed. This is quiet innovation that starts on the ground, close to people, and then develops further,” the NoOnes CEO concluded.

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