UK Treasury Names Ripple’s Model as Bitcoin Slides and Presales Cash In

Britain’s Treasury named Ripple a blueprint for moving government debt onto blockchain rails on July 13, projecting a £33 billion ($44 billion) boost to annual economic output by 2035. Four days later, Bitcoin was still sliding toward $62,000 on fresh US strikes against Iran, and Ethereum sat near $1,800, far below where Wall Street’s own analysts expect it by year end.

Into that gap between official legitimacy and market weakness, a wave of presale tokens has started quoting the same institutional headlines to sell fixed supplies, triple digit staking yields and exchange listings that their own marketing describes only as anticipated, not confirmed.

The UK Names Ripple Its Tokenization Blueprint

Chris Woolard, the UK’s Wholesale Digital Markets Champion, published his first report to the Chancellor on July 13, launching a 54 firm taskforce with a mandate to move tokenized repo, fixed income and funds from sandbox pilots into live markets within 12 months, according to CoinDesk.

The report proposes a hybrid model, layering permissioned institutional networks on top of permissionless public blockchains of the kind Ripple has built its business on, while warning that chain reorganizations on those networks still pose unresolved settlement finality risks.

Ripple’s $1.25 billion acquisition of prime broker Hidden Road and Santander UK’s white label use of its payment rails were cited as evidence of that convergence, with the bank fronting the customer relationship while Ripple’s technology moves the money.

Ripple framed the moment in a post on X, saying onchain funds, bonds and repo “aren’t experiments” anymore and already move faster and cheaper than the legacy systems they would replace.

The taskforce includes 54 firms, among them BlackRock, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, UBS, Barclays, HSBC, Euroclear, Bloomberg, Coinbase and Circle, chosen for their role in institutional financial infrastructure.

Woolard’s team estimates the plan could add up to £33 billion ($44 billion) to annual UK economic output and £14 billion in yearly tax revenue by 2035, assuming Britain captures a meaningful share of a tokenized asset market the report values at up to $88 trillion.

A live, end to end tokenized repo trial is targeted for spring 2027, and the government wants to issue its first digital gilt, called DIGIT, in early 2027. Public feedback on the plan stays open through September 4.

Bitcoin Answers to the Fed Before It Answers to Iran

Bitcoin fell about 2% to roughly $62,000 this week after a 21 day ceasefire between Washington and Tehran collapsed. The truce, agreed June 17, was the latest in a series of pauses in a conflict running since February.

The US military struck between 90 and 140 Iranian military installations over a five day campaign, wounding more than 260 people according to Iran’s health ministry, and roughly $350 million in leveraged crypto positions were liquidated as traders cut risk.

History offers a rough guide. Bitcoin was trading near $107,000 when US strikes hit Iranian targets in June 2025. It dropped nearly 4% that time and recovered within weeks.

This time the reaction was smaller even though oil moved harder. Bitcoin fell less than 2% while Brent crude jumped roughly 4%, and CoinDesk’s July 13 market analysis described the muted response as a sign Bitcoin now tracks dollar liquidity and Federal Reserve policy more closely than war headlines.

Whale wallets used the dip to buy. Large holders accumulated more than 270,000 BTC, worth about $16.7 billion, around the $59,000 level during a two week stretch in late June and early July.

Sentiment stayed sour regardless. The Fear and Greed Index, which tracks trader psychology, was reading 28 this week, deep in fear territory, according to data from CoinGecko and Alternative.me.

Bitcoin ETFs are still climbing out of a record $4.06 billion in outflows in June, though BlackRock’s IBIT and Fidelity’s FBTC both logged renewed inflows in July.

Zoom out further and the picture gets less flattering. Bitcoin is down roughly 31% so far in 2026 while the S&P 500 is up about 9% over the same stretch, a gap that leaves Bitcoin’s hedge narrative looking thin after a conflict that pushed physical gold much higher while Bitcoin fell.

BitMine Keeps Buying Ether Despite a $9.2 Billion Paper Loss

BitMine Immersion Technologies, the Ethereum treasury firm chaired by Tom Lee, added another 27,801 ETH last week for about $49 million, pushing its total holdings to 5,770,038 ETH, near 4.8% of Ethereum’s circulating supply of roughly 120.7 million coins and worth about $10.1 billion.

The firm’s average purchase price works out to $3,374 per coin. Market data provider DropsTab estimates BitMine is sitting on an unrealized loss of about $9.2 billion, and it is still buying.

Robinhood Chain is an Ethereum layer 2 network built on Arbitrum. Lee has tied BitMine’s buying to its debut on July 1, when the chain crossed $1 billion in trading volume within days, more than any other decentralized exchange.

Robinhood’s 27 million users are paying crypto fees denominated in ETH. Everyday users are starting to see ETH as money.

Tom Lee, BitMine’s chairman, said in a statement.

Actual usage trails the pitch. Token Terminal counted 788,000 active addresses on the new network so far, well short of Robinhood’s 27 million account holders, and ETH itself was down about 2% on the day the news broke, up just 1.3% on the week.

Bernstein analysts pegged Robinhood Chain’s first week volume at $3.1 billion, driven largely by meme coin speculation rather than the tokenized stock trading Robinhood has promoted.

Wall Street’s own targets show how far ETH still has to travel. Lee has forecast $7,000 to $9,000 for early 2026 and says $20,000 is possible by year end. Standard Chartered has a $7,500 target, and BitMEX co founder Arthur Hayes has stuck with $10,000, according to a Coinpedia roundup of 2026 forecasts.

Coinbase’s institutional research team described the wider setup more cautiously, saying 2026’s crypto market rhymes more with 1996 than 1999, constructive but with a wide uncertainty band.

Why Do Presale Pitches Quote the Same Headlines as Wall Street?

Presale marketers have learned that institutional tokenization headlines sell better than crypto jargon alone. Citing a Treasury report or a BlackRock filing lends borrowed credibility to pitches that carry none of the oversight, audited history or confirmed listings those institutions actually have.

Press materials distributed this month through the release network openPR promoted a token called Pepeto alongside the same UK tokenization headlines. The material cites more than $10.4 million raised in presale funding, a fixed supply of 420 trillion tokens, staking advertised at 168% APY, and a Binance listing the material itself calls anticipated, not confirmed.

The same material also cites an audit from SolidProof, a smaller compliance firm without the wide regulatory recognition of top tier auditors, and describes its founders only as the “genius” behind the original Pepe token and a “former Binance expert,” without naming either one.

That pattern, associating a project with unnamed big names to capitalize on hype instead of verified credentials, is exactly what MetaMask’s own safety guidance warns wallet holders to check before buying into a presale.

Mutuum Finance is a separate presale that has circulated with no exchange listing date at all, leaving buyers with no specific exit event to point to beyond the promise of future growth.

• What we know: The Treasury’s taskforce includes 54 named firms with public deadlines. Bitcoin’s and Ethereum’s price moves are tracked in real time across exchanges. BitMine’s ETH holdings and its unrealized loss come from the firm’s own disclosures.

• What’s unconfirmed: Pepeto’s Binance listing remains anticipated, not booked, by its own promoters’ account. Its 168% staking yield and $10.4 million raise total have no independent regulator or exchange behind them. Mutuum Finance has not named an exchange or a date at all.

Blockchain security firm CertiK tracked 93,930 token launches promoted in Telegram groups between late 2023 and mid 2024 and found nearly half of them turned out to be rug pulls, about 46,526 tokens in total.

Spotting the Difference Before You Wire Funds

Due diligence guides aimed at retail crypto buyers converge on the same handful of warning signs, and several of Pepeto’s advertised features land squarely on those checklists.

• Anonymous or pseudonymous team members with no verifiable public track record
• Promised returns that sound fixed or guaranteed, including triple digit staking yields
• Audits from smaller firms without wide regulatory recognition, rather than a top tier auditor
• An exchange listing described as anticipated rather than confirmed by the exchange itself
• Marketing built around urgency, countdown pricing and a presale window that closes in rising stages

Roughly 30% of crypto projects carry at least one red flag, according to research compiled by Cryptsy, and separately PeckShield tallied $834.5 million lost to scams in a single year, on top of $2.15 billion stolen through hacks.

Trust problems are not confined to anonymous presales either. An established exchange, BingX, recently rolled out a zero fee crypto cash out promotion that drew its own scrutiny over whether the terms held up in practice.

The claims remain the promoters’ to prove, since no regulator or exchange has verified any of them yet.

Two Speeds, One Market

Tiger Research’s 2026 roundup, published through CoinGecko, describes crypto splitting into two distinct domains this year, one built on compliance and verifiable revenue, the other running on speculation and cultural momentum.

The UK taskforce sits firmly in the first lane, with named banks, public deadlines and a Chancellor waiting on results. Presale tokens sit in the second, selling early entry ahead of a listing that may or may not arrive.

Scrutiny is widening on the regulated side too. Senate Democrats have demanded probes into a $1.4 billion crypto haul tied to Trump, showing regulators are willing to examine crypto earnings at the highest levels of the market.

Feedback on the Treasury’s taskforce closes September 4. Pepeto’s presale, according to its own promotional material, closes whenever its final pricing stage sells out, with no comparable deadline published anywhere else.

Frequently Asked Questions

What Does the UK’s Digital Securities Sandbox Actually Test?

The Financial Conduct Authority and Bank of England run the sandbox with 16 participating firms testing tokenized bonds, equities and fund units under controlled regulatory conditions, separate from the newer 54 firm taskforce announced this month.

Is Robinhood Chain the Same Thing as the Robinhood Trading App?

No. Robinhood Chain is a separate Ethereum layer 2 network built on Arbitrum that Robinhood launched on July 1, using ETH as its gas token for onchain settlement, distinct from the brokerage app most users already know.

How Long Do Legitimate Crypto Presales Typically Run?

Most legitimate presales run for weeks rather than years. CryptoManiaks flagged one 2026 presale scam that stretched fundraising over 450 days with a 257 billion token supply, far outside normal presale timelines and a pattern researchers treat as a warning sign on its own.

What Is DIGIT, the UK’s Digital Gilt?

DIGIT is the nickname for the UK government’s planned digital gilt instrument, first announced in November 2024 and updated in July 2025 with plans for onchain settlement and secondary market trading. HSBC’s Orion platform was appointed in February to support the pilot, and Woolard wants the first digital gilt issued in early 2027.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Cryptocurrency investments, including presale tokens, carry substantial risk, including total loss of principal. Figures are accurate as of publication on July 16, 2026, and market conditions may change. Always consult a qualified financial advisor and conduct independent research before investing.