The bull is back, baby. The number of crypto millionaires just jumped 40%, driven by a market cap surge to $3.3 trillion. And while some are making millions, one NBA star just recovered an old Coinbase account after nearly a decade – and found a small fortune waiting.
From Google’s stablecoin push to a Premier League-linked Solana investment, here’s what happened this week in crypto.
Crypto millionaires surge 40% as market cap tops $3.3T
The number of cryptocurrency millionaires has jumped 40% over the past year, reaching 241,700 individuals globally, according to Henley & Partners’ Crypto Health Report. The surge coincides with a booming crypto market that pushed total valuations above $3.3 trillion by mid-2025.
Henley’s report is based on proprietary-tier modeling, as well as data from CoinMarketCap, Binance, and Etherscan. The US, Singapore, and Hong Kong emerged as the top migration hubs for crypto investors, according to Henley’s Crypto Adoption Index.
Switzerland and the UAE rounded out the top five. Smaller nations including El Salvador, Panama, and Uruguay are also developing policies to attract digital asset holders through favorable regulation and tax strategies.
Henley noted that the rise aligns with a broader trend of institutional involvement in the sector. The firm said,
“This significant growth coincides with a watershed year for institutional adoption”
Bitcoin (BTC) continues to drive much of the growth as the number of Bitcoin centimillionaires, those holding over $100 million in BTC, climbed 63% to 254. Bitcoin billionaires rose to 17, marking a 55% increase.
Inflows into US-based spot Bitcoin ETFs have grown by 62.5% in 2025 alone, while Spot Ether ETFs also saw inflows pump by a massive 300%. Hedge funds, brokerages, advisory, and private equity firms also increased exposure.
Despite the rise in ultra-wealthy crypto holders, total user adoption grew more modestly – up just 5% to 590 million globally.
Also, Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz has pushed back on predictions that BTC could hit $1 million in the near term, warning that such a move could likely reflect a collapse in the US economy rather than a crypto success story.
“I’d rather have a lower Bitcoin price in a more stable United States than the opposite.”
NBA star recovers his Coinbase account after nearly 10 years
Nearly 10 years after buying Bitcoin (BTC) on Coinbase, NBA superstar Kevin Durant has regained access to his holdings thanks to a completed account recovery.
The news was announced via an X post by Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong last Thursday evening. He wrote,
“We got this fixed. Account recovery complete!”
Kevin Durant, a 15-time NBA All-Star who will suit up for the Houston Rockets this season, shared the story of his lost Bitcoin on Tuesday at the annual Gameplan Summit in Santa Monica.
Appearing alongside his agent, Rich Kleiman, Durant told the host Andrew Ross Sorkin that sometime around 2014 or 2015, he discovered Bitcoin by watching YouTube videos, and gave his agent “a little nudge.”
Kleiman recounted how, afterward, the two called their business manager, who “shut it down.” But about a year later, after hearing the word “Bitcoin” several times at a party hosted by Ben Horowitz, the co-founder of venture capital firm a16z, they began investing the very next day.
“And fortunately,” Kleiman added,
“We’ve yet been able to track down his Coinbase account info, so we’ve never sold anything, and his Bitcoin is just through the roof.”
Neither Durant nor his agent, who were early investors in Coinbase through their joint business venture Thirty Five Ventures, have disclosed how much Bitcoin they purchased at the time.
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Italian soccer team owner invests in Solana
Solana (SOL) gains attention as Brera Holdings, a NASDAQ-listed football ownership company, rebrands to Solmate following a $300 million investment led by Cathie Wood of ARK Invest and Abu Dhabi’s Pulsar Group.
The capital will enable the company, soon to be renamed Solmate, to begin stockpiling SOL tokens. Shares in Brera Holdings, an Ireland-based multi-club football operator with assets in Italy, North Macedonia, Mozambique, and Mongolia, surged dramatically, at one point nearly 600%, before closing around 225% higher following the announcement.
The firm plans to accumulate the cryptocurrency and pursue a dual listing in the United Arab Emirates, leveraging regional relationships to expand its SOL holdings. This would help to drive a surge in its share price and broader market interest.
Such an approach echoes models used by firms that build substantial crypto treasuries, notably MicroStrategy, which has raised equity and debt to acquire roughly $75 billion in BTC.
In parallel with the announcement, SOL has experienced an upward price movement. Over the past seven days, SOL rose about 8.5%, reaching roughly $247.50 at the time of writing. This gain reflects renewed market interest tied to Solmate’s strategy.
Marco Santori, formerly with Kraken and Pantera Capital, has been appointed CEO of Solmate, stating that the company intends to be more than a simple crypto treasury. The board also includes economist Arthur Laffer, whose involvement appears to have been a catalyst for Cathie Wood’s participation.
In other news, Brera’s soccer operations have had mixed results: its Mongolian club finished last in its league last season, while its Italian side, Juve Stabia, sits toward the lower end of the table early this season.
Meanwhile, the broader universe of crypto treasury companies has seen volatility. Some firms now trade below the value of their crypto holdings, raising concerns about sustainability. Solmate enters a crowded field of institutions aiming to accumulate SOL, as Pantera Capital recently helped raise $1.25 billion for another Solana-focused venture.
Nvidia partners with UK crypto miner
Nvidia, one of the most significant chip designers globally, reportedly announced a $683 million investment in a UK-based AI infrastructure company that spun off from a cryptocurrency miner in 2024.
According to a Bloomberg report, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said the investment in Nscale, the AI arm of crypto mining company Arkon Energy, would be part of efforts to develop the UK’s infrastructure around artificial intelligence. Nscale spun off Arkon in May 2024 to offer AI cloud services across Europe.
The investment came amid a push by the UK government to develop the country’s AI infrastructure. Nvidia affirmed that it would partner with Nscale to scale up the UK’s capacity to 60,000 GPUs, which will be included in some of Nscale’s data centers by 2026.
“Sovereign AI infrastructure is key to national resilience, economic growth, and strategic autonomy,” said Nscale CEO Josh Payne regarding the UK expansion. He continued, “This milestone deepens our commitment to providing critical AI infrastructure for the next industrial revolution.”
In January, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the government planned to adopt a plan with 50 recommendations “to capture the opportunities of AI.” At the time, Nscale, Vantage Data Centers, and Kyndryl committed about a combined $17 billion toward the investment.
Headquartered in California, Nvidia beat all the major tech companies to reach $4 trillion in market capitalization in July. Some experts suggested the surge in stock price behind the milestone was driven by investor confidence in a push toward technologies dealing with AI.
The milestone marked Nvidia’s valuation just above the total market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies, which had hovered near $4 trillion since July.
Also, after Nvidia announced that it plans to invest $100 billion into OpenAI, its own market cap increased by $177 billion. Crypto miner stocks rose as this vendor financing deal shored up the AI market.
Nvidia isn’t the only firm that jumped from the OpenAI deal; most Bitcoin mining companies saw similar boosts. This isn’t too surprising, as Nvidia is closely entangled with the crypto mining industry and OpenAI is a major customer for them.
Such a massive deal could keep the AI sector and related industries afloat for the foreseeable future.
Google unveils stablecoin payment system
Google unveiled an open-source agentic payment system in anticipation of future e-commerce driven by intelligent bots on behalf of users and themselves.
According to a Fortune report, the tech giant collaborated with top crypto firms and protocols like Coinbase, Ethereum Foundation, Sui, and others. This showcased another product market fit for crypto and stablecoins in the agentic and post-AGI (artificial general intelligence) era.
James Tromans, the Head of Web3 at Google Cloud, said,
“The way we built it is from the ground up to factor in both heritage and existing payment rail capabilities as well as forthcoming capabilities such as stablecoins.”
Beyond crypto activities, Google has also worked with Salesforce, American Express, and others on a wide range of commercial activities that agents can handle.
AI agents are specialized autonomous or semi-autonomous bots that can handle virtually everything humans do online. Experts believe bots will become vital assistants in the future and will need a trusted, standard way to be adopted into e-commerce.
In that case, crypto will be the only way to pay and monetize their services. That is where Google’s Agentic Payments Protocol (AP2) comes in, as it leverages crypto effectively.
Although the crypto-focused agents were first fronted by Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong last year, agentic transactions have now become a reality. In its first demo, built with Coinbase for Lowe’s Innovation Lab, agents carried out end-to-end shopping tasks – from research to checkout – using stablecoin payments.
Armstrong commented on the latest update, calling it “really cool.”
Likewise, David Crapis, AI lead at EF, said,
“It’s a big deal: adding native crypto payments to the A2A protocol, a nice complement to ERC-8004, which brings discovery & trust.”
But this could be just the beginning.
The Ethereum Foundation recently formed a dedicated AI team to integrate agents into the blockchain, allowing them to operate and thrive without hindrance from legacy systems.
Other legacy payment players like Visa also believe that agentic e-commerce will become a big thing.
In June, Visa partnered with Crossmint to form “Visa Intelligent Commerce” to allow agents to make smooth purchases on behalf of consumers. But Google is going for the whole modern payment stack.
Last month, it announced a low-cost L1 blockchain network focused on payment and financial markets, directly competing with Ethereum, Solana, and others. It remains to be seen how far it will continue influencing the Web3 space.
Tether eyes $500B valuation
As Q3 wraps, Tether’s (USDT) balance sheet shows a clear uptick. Total issuance hit $172 billion, keeping USDT at 56% of the stablecoin market. That meant even as the overall market tops $300 billion+, Tether still stayed the central liquidity anchor.
Generally speaking, USDT demand continues to stay strong across industries.
CEO Paolo Ardonio says the firm is now exploring “selective” investor funding to scale operations and support growth.
“Tether is evaluating a raise from a selected group of high-profile key investors, to maximize the scale of the company’s strategy across all existing and new business lines by several orders of magnitude.”
This means that Tether is exploring capital raises to expand its balance sheet.
Bloomberg reported the company was targeting $15-20 billion through a private placement for a 3% stake, implying a $500 billion post-money valuation. At that level, Tether would sit alongside OpenAI and SpaceX as one of the few private firms valued near half a trillion dollars.
But what does this raise mean for the broader crypto market?
Tether’s Q2 reserve report highlighted its capital backing.
Notably, its $172 billion USDT supply was supported by $162 billion in assets, including $127 billion in the U.S. Treasuries and over 100,000 BTC totaling roughly 87% of its reserve base.
The structure helped Tether maintain its $1 peg, facilitate large transactions and generate income. Moreover, it reported $4.9 billion profit in Q2 2025. That profit model supported its stablecoin dominance ahead of Circle’s (USDC).
Furthermore, Tether has emerged as a top BTC treasury holder. Its reserves now total 100,521 BTC, ranking sixth globally. Against this backdrop, a $20 billion private placement would give Tether significant firepower to expand its balance sheet.
This could enhance liquidity across crypto markets, boosting its BTC treasury accumulation.
Zypto unlocks real-world USDC payments in Brazil and Colombia
In a major step forward for stablecoin utility, Zypto App has launched USDC payments via Pix in Brazil and Nequi in Colombia.
Built on Stellar’s blockchain and integrated through PayAbroad, the feature allows users to scan merchant QR codes and pay directly from their Zypto App wallet using USDC. Transactions are settled instantly, with no banks or off-ramps involved .
The merchant receives Brazilian Real or Colombian Peso, while the user stays fully on-chain. With Pix now accepted at nearly every merchant in Brazil and Nequi widely used across Colombia, this marks a bold expansion of Zypto’s and crypto’s real-world footprint in Latin America.
Find out more here.
Closing remark
The recovery of NBA star Kevin Durant’s account puts the industry in a positive light. Brera Holdings’ Solana approach echoes models used by firms that built substantial crypto treasuries; time will tell if it can emulate this.
Nscale’s investment in Arkon Energy is part of efforts to develop the UK’s infrastructure around artificial intelligence. Google’s Agentic Payments Protocol (AP2) is primed to support AI in its bid to transform technology.
If Tether can get the capital raise, this could enhance liquidity across crypto markets, boosting its BTC treasury accumulation. Finally, the rise of crypto millionaires aligns with a broader trend of institutional involvement in the sector.
As adoption accelerates, Zypto remains focused on building the tools that make crypto usable in everyday life – from wallets and swaps to cards and real-world payments.
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FAQs
How did the NBA star recover his Coinbase account?
NBA superstar Kevin Durant regained access to his BTC holdings on his Coinbase account thanks to a completed account recovery.
Why did Brera Holdings change its name?
Brera Holdings rebrands to Solmate following a $300 million investment led by ARK Invest and Abu Dhabi’s Pulsar Group.
Who did Nvidia partner with?
Nvidia invested in Nscale, the AI arm of crypto mining company Arkon Energy.
What did Google launch?
Google unveiled an open-source agentic payment system, which empowers AI bots to handle e-commerce.
What is Tether’s new update?
Tether is eyeing a capital raise to push its valuation to $500B.
