Bitcoin Hits New High Above $119,000, Pump.fun Team Holds Token Sale, UAE Denies “Golden Visas” for TON, Hacker Returns Stolen GMX Assets, and Other Events of the Week

Path to the Record
On Monday, the first cryptocurrency began strengthening around $109,000. By midweek, the coin continued trading within a narrow range, not breaking through the resistance level.

Bitcoin made a significant surge on the evening of July 9, climbing to $112,000 in less than an hour, bringing it close to its previous all-time high (ATH).

The very next day, the digital gold updated its record above $113,000, but this was only the first step in its growth. On the night of July 10–11, the asset hit a new ATH, reaching $118,869 (on Binance).

BTC/USDT Hourly Chart on Binance. Source: TradingView.
On Sunday evening, Bitcoin once again set a new high at $119,376.

At the time of writing, the coin is trading near the peak at around $118,700, gaining approximately 9% over the week.
Amid the digital gold rally, other top market cap assets also showed positive dynamics, with some outperforming the flagship in percentage terms.

Source: CoinGecko.
Ethereum rose by 18%, surpassing $3,000 amid record ETF inflows.

XRP increased by 24%, while DOGE gained 21%.

The Crypto Fear and Greed Index remains in the “greed zone” at a level of 74.

Source: Alternative.
The total cryptocurrency market capitalization reached $3.77 trillion, with BTC dominance at 62.4%.

PUMP Token Sale
On July 12, the highly anticipated token sale of the Pump.fun platform took place under the ticker PUMP. The event was conducted in the format of an initial coin offering (ICO) on major centralized exchanges.

According to the tokenomics, the total supply was set at 1 trillion PUMP. During the public sale, 15% (150 billion tokens) were sold at a price of $0.004.

PUMP Tokenomics. Source: X.
The Saturday ICO concluded in 12 minutes. The platform’s team raised $600 million from the sale.

Exchange Bybit reported that due to an unexpected API delay, the offering was oversubscribed. The platform promised to reverify the final allocation and refund users who did not make it onto the sale list.

The exact launch date of PUMP remains unknown.

On the Hyperliquid pre-market, the token is trading above the ICO price — around $0.006.

Source: Hyperliquid.
However, on-chain data shows that many large traders are shorting PUMP.

Additionally, the sale took place amid the emergence of a competing platform on the Solana network — LetsBonk. On July 8, the launchpad surpassed Pump.fun in daily revenue and number of tokens launched.

Visa for TON Staking
At the end of last week, the TON Foundation announced a program to obtain a 10-year UAE “golden visa.” To participate, investors were offered to stake Toncoin (TON) worth $100,000 and pay a $35,000 fee.

The announcement was also reposted by Telegram CEO Pavel Durov. However, several local regulators—including the Federal Authority for Identity and Citizenship, 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 unrelated to digital assets.

VARA specifically noted that TON is not licensed or regulated by the agency.

Representatives of the blockchain program insisted on its legitimacy, but related posts were eventually deleted. The initiative involved locking tokens for three years with an annual yield of about 3–4%. Organizers promised visa approval within seven weeks.

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

Foundation representatives added that submitting an application does not guarantee visa approval. The decision remains with government authorities. If the project receives official support in the future, it will be announced separately.

Stole and Returned
On July 9, on-chain researchers detected suspicious asset outflows linked to the decentralized exchange (DEX) GMX. The platform later confirmed the hack.

The total damage amounted to about $42 million. The GLP token pool on GMX V1 on the Arbitrum network was attacked.

After the incident, the GMX team sent an on-chain message to the hacker offering a 10% reward for returning the stolen funds. The attacker soon accepted the offer.

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

According to the GMX report, the protocol suffered from a reentrancy vulnerability in the OrderBook contract. This allowed the attacker to manipulate Bitcoin’s price and withdraw liquidity with profit.

After the attack, the native GMX token price dropped from $14 to $10 but recovered to $13 following the asset return.

GMX/USD Hourly Chart on Uniswap. Source: GeckoTerminal.

Jack Dorsey’s Bluetooth Chat
Block CEO Jack Dorsey unveiled the beta version of a decentralized messenger called Bitchat, which operates via Bluetooth without an internet connection.

The developer compared the new app to IRC chats from the late 1990s.

Bitchat is a fully decentralized network with no central servers. Registration does not require accounts, email, or phone numbers. Messages are stored only in the device’s memory and do not enter any central database. End-to-end encryption provides additional security.

Each device in Bitchat acts as both a client and a relay. Messages can “hop” between devices to reach remote users. The Bluetooth range is about 30 meters, and individual network clusters are connected by bridge nodes. Large messages are split into 500-byte fragments.

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

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

Youssef acknowledged some risks associated with using Bluetooth networks but emphasized that the point is not to eliminate vulnerabilities but to provide people with more tools and choices.

“In areas with strong infrastructure, people will stick to regular apps. But for those facing outages, travel, or local restrictions, having a decentralized backup option is incredibly valuable. The beauty of peer-to-peer tools is that they scale easily as people use them where needed. This is a quiet innovation that starts locally near people and then grows,” concluded the NoOnes CEO.