July 2026 Update

📉 Market Update: The bear market continues

Disclaimer: Not financial advice.

June’s Monthly Closes:

BTC: -20.5%, ETH: -21.7%, SOL: -10.6%, SUI: -22.9%, MON: -22.9%

June prices gave up the gains that some tokens made in the previous months. However, for me it’s not a surprise to see the downtrend continue lower, as we progress through the bear market. I am prepared for the bear market to continue into Q3, in line with the four year cycle. For me, the large hacks of previous months are more concerning than price action this month.

I am beginning to wonder, however, whether these low prices justify that we once again stop selling our earned tokens, and begin accumulating, a strategy worked well for us in 2022 and 2023.

🟣 RevTec Live on Mainnet

RevTec is fully up and running on mainnet, available for use at app.revtec.fi for anyone wanting to give it a try. Liquidity is currently the limiting factor for broader adoption, and I will be spending the next week(s) working on a pricing model that will allow us to be a market maker and provide an initial source of active liquidity to revSOL and issSOL.  

🌐 Arcium ARX Token Launch

Arcium launched their ARX token, which is currently trading at a $260M FDV, above the $200M paid by Coinlist sale participants back in March. As investors, we are quite happy with the token launch, although our tokens don’t begin unlocking for another year. Perhaps more importantly, the launch of the token kick starts the full economic model, which determines for how developers and users interact with Arcium’s privacy network and node operators like us.

🌐 Solana: SIMD-550, SIMD-525, Governance

The debate around SIMD-525 seems to have quieted back down: Solana’s block times will be reduced from 400ms to 200ms, and voting costs will double for validators, at least until Alpenglow is implemented on mainnet. Let’s see.  

SIMD-550 is also back on the table, aiming to double the disinflation rate of SOL, reducing issuance and the “leaky bucket problem”. As presented by Helius in the recent Foundation validator call and also on their blog,

Finally, the new governance tooling is almost ready for use. Clearly it’s needed.

🇩🇪 Berlin Blockchain Week

It was a quiet Berlin Blockchain Week this year, for me. I was out of town for the Solana Summit, which would have no doubt been the highlight of the week for me. (Anyone remember the Berlin Hacker House?) And I didn’t bother attending DappCon or Web3Summit, remembering my talk at Web3Summit last year, to a very low energy and non-technical crowd.

I did, however, attend Ethereum Day, the spiritual successor to Protocol Berg. Some familiar faces but quite a small audience, although it’s always cool to see the Funkhaus.

🦭 Seal MPC

This month also saw the launch of Seal MPC by Mysten Labs. As one of a few node operators, we are always happy to be invited to participate in opportunities like this. The next thing on Mysten’s timeline is Hashi, a native Bitcoin bridge with Sui, which we have also expressed interest in supporting with a node.

Don’t forget to enjoy the summer - get off twitter, plan a trip, touch some grass! Crypto winter doesn’t need to be a bad time. I find that surviving bear markets is as much about mental health as it is about liquidity.

Be well,

-Max Sherwood, H2O Nodes Co-founder