Plus, what crypto got right about SpaceX ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ View Online Crypto Update Victor Zhang — Head of Crypto August 7, 2026 Q2 IN NUMBERS (Apr 1 – Jun 30) BTC: -13.9% ETH: -26.2% SOL: -10.2% TOTAL MARKET CAP: US$2.02T (-13.3%) Four big things that happened in crypto Hi there, First off, a quick introduction for anyone wondering what happened to Danish, who usually writes this letter (and is now focused on our chequing and spending products — proof of life here). I’m Victor Zhang, Wealthsimple’s new head of crypto. My background is in building DeFi products and platforms, and I’m excited to bring even more innovation to crypto at Wealthsimple, and to you. But anyway, on to this quarter’s crypto letter. We started 2026 in a crypto winter and, despite record temperatures around the world, there was still no thaw in sight last quarter. As North American markets neared or cleared all-time highs, Bitcoin sank more than 50% from its own all-time high of US$126,198, set last October, with back-to-back quarterly losses. U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs lost US$4 billion, with June going down as their worst month on record. ETH and SOL also took double-digit beatings. Why? It was a lot of things: the tumult of the Iran war, a strong U.S. dollar, the ongoing semiconductor boom sucking up institutional capital, and concerns about the hawkishness of the new U.S. Federal Reserve chair, Kevin Warsh. All of those elements hint at the possibility of higher interest rates, and that tends to spook riskier assets like crypto. Here’s a closer look at four of the more notable things in the crypto world last quarter. Canada got its first stablecoin from a regulated issuer Launched in May, CADD is the first loonie-backed stablecoin to receive Bay Street support. It’s a big deal for its issuer, the Alberta-based crypto custodian Tetra Trust, and for all the other big Canadian companies who brought it to life — including, full disclosure, Wealthsimple. Right now it’s mostly being used by corporations, but the next stage will be making CADD available to retail investors. Sometime in the near-ish future, CADD will let you settle cross-border payments faster and cheaper than Interac, and way faster and cheaper than a wire transfer. You’ll also be able to use CADD to pay for online purchases. And as CAD-denominated DeFi markets develop, a loonie stablecoin like CADD could let Canadians lend and borrow without converting to USD first — avoiding the exchange fees that come with today's USD-dominated protocols. The U.S. got regulated perpetual futures Perps are a type of futures contract that let you take a leveraged position on the price of an asset — anything from BTC to gold or oil. But unlike futures contracts, which have an expiration date, perps can be held as long as you want and traded whenever you want, not just when markets happen to be open. These sorts of on-chain commodities are already popular on decentralized exchanges like Hyperliquid, which logged nearly US$3 trillion in volume last year. And that was before perps were regulated, so the number should only grow. On May 29, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission approved Kalshi’s Bitcoin perp (BTCPERP). Kalshi also filed to create regulated perps on gold, silver, and platinum, which crypto venues have been running for months. And we’re seeing perps on AI compute and GPU rental rates — assets that still don’t have deep and continuous trading in traditional markets. These moves all point to a broader shift: the 24/7, no-expiry structure that crypto pioneered is steadily moving into commodities, equities, and more. SpaceX IPO tokenization lifts off SpaceX’s IPO in June put the whole concept of a crypto-based stock offering into high orbit. Major crypto platforms tried to help regular people invest in the company before it IPO’d — something typically reserved for institutional investors — by tokenizing some private SpaceX shares. And it worked: on the day of the IPO alone, Hyperliquid investors traded more than 7 million SpaceX perp contracts, worth around US$1.2 billion. What’s really interesting here is that, unlike in a traditional pre-IPO process where the opening price is kept secret until the offering, crypto platforms were able to predict it based on supply and demand. On Hyperliquid, for example, investors priced shares between US$155 and US$170 — almost exactly the range it settled into that first day of trading. Crypto hacks hit an all-time high — and a new target Between April and June, 123 major attacks occurred, resulting in US$800 million in losses, making last quarter one of the worst on record. And then, about a week ago, hackers allegedly stole US$100 million in crypto from Coldcard hardware wallets. This rocked the crypto world even more than the record attacks because hardware wallets are supposed to be 100% safe. They’re not even connected to the internet. But hackers still found a way in — in this case, a firmware bug that caused some devices to generate passkeys with a fraction of the randomness they were supposed to have. Thieves were able to guess the keys, and some people who did everything they could to be safe lost their money anyway. It’s a good reminder that we can’t take any security for granted, and that it’s worth taking extra precautions, like never putting all of your crypto in one place, especially if you have a lot. Also, always pay attention to how your wallet provider, whether custodied or self-custodied, approaches security — and how they respond when something goes wrong. What’s next? Although many traders are saying they think BTC has bottomed, we’re not expecting a dramatic rebound any time soon thanks to the continued inflationary pressures of the war in Iran and possible food shortages following summer heat waves across North America and Europe. However, there are a bunch of new opportunities evolving in the space to keep investors optimistic. I’m keeping my eye on things like NEAR’s AI blockchain infrastructure and Morpho’s permissionless lending protocols. But the area I’m really following is something called the chain wars. During the last quarter, Circle, Tempo, and Robinhood all launched or announced stablecoin chains to support low-cost, instantaneous global payments. With three in the mix, we could be looking at a serious, consumer-benefiting fight over cheaper, near-instant cross-border payments — an area where the incumbent rails have long been slow and expensive. All the best, Victor Zhang Head of Crypto CRYPTO 201 Overcollateralized Lending Protocols The biggest perk of borrowing crypto through DeFi is that you don’t need to worry about banks, credit scores, or collection agencies. But lenders aren’t so fortunate. Because DeFi is permissionless, anyone with a wallet can borrow funds, including someone with a long and sordid history of skipping out on their debts. Given crypto’s volatility, a dip in prices can send some borrowers running — and lenders into the red. To solve this, protocols like Aave and Morpho require a practice known as overcollateralization. Borrowers must lock up more assets as collateral than the amount they want to borrow. Exactly how much depends on the crypto being borrowed — higher buffers are usually required for more volatile coins like ETH — but it’s typically from 110% to 150% of the loan value. That way, if prices fall, the guys handing out the money are still covered. On paper this looks inefficient for borrowers. Most people take out a traditional loan because they need cash they don’t already have, after all. But in DeFi the opposite is often true for long-term holders: if you’re sitting on crypto you’d rather not sell, you can lock some of it up as collateral and borrow a stablecoin like USDC (or CADD in the future). You walk away with usable cash or another asset while keeping your original exposure intact — no sale, no capital-gains event. And when you’re ready to unlock your collateral, you just pay the loan back. Did you like this newsletter? Your feedback (even if it's mean!) helps us get better. 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