The U.S. military's protective measures in the Strait of Hormuz may stabilize global oil transport, impacting market confidence and regional diplomacy.

The post CENTCOM says the southern route through the Strait of Hormuz is still free and open for commercial ships appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

The settlement highlights the heightened due diligence needed for investors in politically-linked crypto ventures amid legal complexities.

The post Trump-linked Bitcoin venture reaches $2.5 million settlement over loan allegation appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

The collapse highlights the risks of concentrated tech investments, potentially impacting investor confidence and related sectors like crypto.

The post Situational Awareness hedge fund loses 67% after concentrated AI bets blow up, forced to sell $16B to Citadel at deep discount appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

GMX's app updates enhance user experience and accessibility, potentially increasing decentralized trading adoption and market competitiveness.

The post GMX updates app with smart wallet support and one-click trading appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Increased OPEC production may lead to potential oversupply, affecting oil prices and market expectations amid tracking challenges and geopolitical factors.

The post OPEC oil production rose again last month, with gains in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Iraq, though opaque shipping data made output harder to track appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Bitcoin Magazine

Self Custody Is Dead. Long Live Self Custody

The Coldcard hack last week dealt a low blow to certain elements of the Bitcoin industry. A somber introspection has begun to question many of the practices and assumptions involved in securing bitcoin at a retail level. The consequences of this process might not be visible for many months. 

Some are saying that self-custody is dead. Some reports estimate that over 11,000 bitcoins were moved to custodial exchanges last week as users fled one of the most popular hardware wallets in the Bitcoin industry. The hack, which is ongoing and users can still save themselves from, has seen north of 1,300 bitcoins stolen, with some estimates as high as 2,000 coins. 

Coinkite in particular and its most vocal founder, NVK, had very strong opinions about what it took to secure bitcoin private keys from hackers. Its hardware wallets were airgapped to make sure malware could not exfiltrate data through USB cables. It used low-resolution, LED screens to avoid the complexity of touch screens. It developed protocols like BBQR and integrated NFC so that information could be transferred between the device and a computer without them touching or sharing SD cards. The list of paranoid design choices that made Coldcards iconic is long.

Yet the hackers involved in the theft of bitcoins held in Coldcards last week did not use any methods you might see in a modern spy movie. They exploited the one feature Coldcard should have had absolutely locked down. The generation of keys with high enough randomness, also known as entropy. In other words, secrets securing that are actually, mathematically hard to guess. While the devices were intended to use high-quality sources of entropy, the firmware had a bug which did not, resulting in Bitcoin private keys that were, in turn, easy to guess. The bug went undiscovered for years, and the product only grew in popularity in the meantime, until last week.

“Just buy the ETF bro”

Despite this loss, which wounded a cohort of Bitcoiners who were among the most committed. Bitcoin can not give up on self-custody and expect to retain its integrity. At least that is what many in the industry believe, and the case for that is clear.

Satoshi Nakamoto’s white paper clearly intended Bitcoin to be a solution to trusted third parties and intermediaries. It eloquently made the case against trusted hierarchies of finance, as the 2008 financial crisis revealed the deep systemic risks and flaws legacy finance has led to. Many believe the 2008 crisis was never escaped, its consequences haunting us to this day. 

Going further back to the birth and proliferation of the modern banking system and its fiat currency. The 6102 executive order signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933 saw the persecution and confiscation of gold from centralized trusted third parties and citizens alike. $300,000,000 in gold was returned after the executive order threatened gold owners with heavy fines and jail time if they did not sell their bullion to the banks at $20,67 per ounce. Over 14 million troy ounces worth of gold were turned in as a result. Another 200 million troy ounces are estimated to have been held in the American banking system at the time. The banking system, not just in the U.S. but worldwide at the time, was built atop the gold standard.

The U.S. was the largest economy of the world at the time, with the biggest concentration of gold inside its borders. Its abandonment of the gold standard was a death blow to gold as a free market pricing mechanism for goods and services as a whole. Governments throughout the world, now free from the chains of sound money, quickly fed and fattened from the hidden tax of inflation. At the time of the EO, the price of gold was artificially fixed to $20.67 an ounce; not a year later, it was repriced to $35 with the passing of the Gold Reserve Act in 1934, a 69% devaluation in the dollar. 

The fiat standard was thus delivered to governments throughout the world on a silver platter, by an unholy alliance between the banking system and politicians. It granted central banks the legal right to counterfeit money, to print it at will. It was soon followed by World War Two, which was of course funded by fiat currency. Tens of millions of people sacrificed in this war at the altar of state power. 

Fast forward a hundred years and U.S. government debt demands almost a trillion per year be paid in interest alone, with total owed close to 40 trillion and debt to GDP at 123%. These are arguably the inevitable yet predictable consequences of the death of the gold standard. The purchasing power of the dollar has collapsed in the century that followed, at the same time as technology has gone parabolic in its efficiency gains. That is only possible with money that has continually become worthless for decades. And the dollar is the best of the fiat lot.

Confiscation of gold in a rising power like the United States murdered the gold standard. It, however, could not have been possible if civilian custody of gold had been wider and more distributed. Many of the civilians who returned millions in gold after the 6102 EO had just taken it out of their accounts in a bank run. Their names were known, the amount of gold they held, tallied.

If gold was easier to move in large quantities. If private gold ownership totals had been more ambiguous. If removing the free flow of gold had not been so easy for the state to do, by knocking on the doors of bankers and pointing a gun, then perhaps the economies of the world would not have been able to withstand such a vast and destructive war, as was WWII for so long, in the following decade. 

Bitcoin is Gold, Engineered To Survive a 6102 EO

Bitcoin poses an alternative to gold, designed to learn from its inadequacies. Bitcoin has better properties to resist and survive such a confiscation. Bitcoiners envision and aspire to unlock a world that adopts Bitcoin as a global monetary standard. Where a large minority or even a small majority of the global economy uses Bitcoin as their primary store of value. In such a future, Bitcoin would take the place of gold and return sound money to the so-called capitalist order.  

To reach global reserve currency and defend this position, Bitcoin will need to be better than gold, and it can be better precisely because of its digital nature. The control of private keys, as difficult as it seems now in the shadow of the Coldcard hack, nevertheless can be far more powerful than any physical vault. Multi-signature scripts alone unlock distributed storage of Bitcoin private keys, such that a threshold of them must approve to move coins. This means that multi-jurisdictional, multinational vaults can exist and escape or resist the greedy hands of a large state that might attempt a new kind of 6102 takeover. 

The digital nature of Bitcoin means large amounts of value can be moved easily as well, without having to send the navy on a mission to pick up the gold. Without having to build a trusted hierarchy of banking custodians to transfer it. Civilians, with tools available today and better tools that are yet to come, might be able to hide their Bitcoin ownership as has been done in war-torn countries like Ukraine already, escaping a fearsome state’s grip over the public’s wealth.

Ultimately, a major hardware wallet manufacturer has failed the Bitcoin industry. The fundamental qualities of money remain the same, and among them all, as identified by Aristotle and others beyond him, Bitcoin remains king. 

“Bitcoin vs gold vs fiat One is not like the others” – @BITCOINARCHIVE 

This post Self Custody Is Dead. Long Live Self Custody first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Juan Galt.

Bitcoin Magazine

SEC Commissioner Hester ‘Crypto Mom’ Peirce Optimistic About Clarity Act 

The Security and Exchange Commission’s outgoing commissioner, Hester Peirce, has expressed optimism that the long-awaited Clarity Act will pass. 

Speaking on CoinDesk’s The Policy Protocol show, the regulator said that passing the law would help the SEC in drafting regulation. 

Lawmakers are pushing to get a vote on the crypto market structure bill — or Clarity Act — before the Senate goes to recess. Some Republicans have bemoaned that Democratic members of the senate are deliberately dragging their feet with the bill. 

“I’m still optimistic that the bill will get finished, and it will give I think the industry and investors and regulators an easier path forward because there’ll be very clear lines about who has authority over the crypto spot market, for example,” Commissioner Peirce said. 

“If the legislation passes, we’ve got lots of rulemaking to do,” Peirce continued. “But even if it doesn’t pass, we can do a lot: We can develop a framework for people who are trying to do fundraising using crypto assets, as an example.”

The Clarity Act has been in a deadlock for much of 2026, partially because the banking lobby raised concerns over crypto companies allowing clients to earn stablecoin yield. 

An updated bill of the Clarity Act was introduced in July addressing concerns around ethics; it now bans government officials and their families from issuing or promoting crypto. 

But a group of Democrats have said the bill needs work. 

If passed, the Clarity Act would create a regulatory framework for the U.S. cryptocurrency market.

Commissioner Peirce earned the nickname “crypto mom” for her friendly approach to regulating the space despite the SEC’s previous actions. 

Under ex-Chair Gary Gensler, the top regulator was openly hostile towards the digital asset space and hit crypto companies with a number of lawsuits. 

Since President Donald Trump took office in 2025, the SEC — and other regulators — have taken a far more friendly approach to crypto legislation. 

The SEC in 2025 announced a crypto task force specifically aimed at watchdogging the space.

This post SEC Commissioner Hester ‘Crypto Mom’ Peirce Optimistic About Clarity Act  first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Asset Manager 3iQ to Manage Bhutan’s Bitcoin Reserves

Canadian digital asset manager 3iQ Corp. will work to manage some of the Bitcoin reserves of Bhutan’s Gelephu Mindfulness City project. 

3iQ, Canada’s biggest and oldest digital asset fund manager, will not only manage the 10,000 Bitcoins pledged to build the new region, but also invest in local talent and establish a long-term physical presence in Gelephu as the region positions itself as Bhutan’s new offshore digital financial hub, according to a statement. 

Bhutan last year said it would use 10,000 Bitcoins to fund a special administrative region called the Gelephu Mindfulness City. First announced in 2023, the GMC will be “a world-class economic hub in southern Bhutan.”

“From the very inception we were aligned with GMC’s vision to create a next-generation economic hub that attracts global talent while being committed to Bhutan’s cultural values and environmental principles,” 3iQ’s director and CEO, Pascal St-Jean, said in a statement. 

The GMC’s Board Director, Jigdrel Singay, added: “Beyond their institutional expertise and global track record in digital asset management, what stood out to us was their genuine commitment to investing in people, transferring knowledge and building local capabilities.”

Bhutan has been buying Bitcoin for years, and the GMC project is a way of using its stack to 

Bhutan started quietly mining Bitcoin in 2019. Then, in 2024, it announced it held a reserve of the digital coins before in January 2025 saying it would hold other cryptocurrencies on its balance sheet.

According to Bhutan’s government, the GMC, will be “a new economic hub in southern Bhutan designed around mindfulness, sustainability, and innovation,” and is central to Bhutan’s broader effort to diversify its economy beyond hydropower and tourism. 

The plan is similar to El Salvador‘s crypto ambitions. The tiny Central American nation also announced plans in 2021 for a smart city dubbed “Bitcoin City” — a tax-free economic hub aimed at attracting the nomadic wealthy and tech entrepreneurs, funded via Bitcoin-backed tokenized bonds.

This post Asset Manager 3iQ to Manage Bhutan’s Bitcoin Reserves first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Corporation’s Approach to the BIP-110 Soft Fork

BIP-110 is approaching its first consequential activation boundary. The proposal enters mandatory signaling at block 961,632, currently projected around August 9, 2026. It locks in no later than block 963,648, roughly in late August, and activates its new transaction rules at block 965,664, currently projected for early September. BIP-110 uses a 55% signaling threshold and would enforce its restrictions for 52,416 blocks, approximately one year.

Bitcoin resolves consensus changes through coordination among miners, users, and nodes (note that anyone can be any combination of these three things). Miners choose which valid chain to extend. Users decide which chain’s coins, deposits, and payments they recognize. Nodes independently choose which rules they enforce. Durable consensus emerges whenever these groups converge on the same chain.

BIP-110 restricts large data pushes, oversized output scripts, undefined witness versions, Taproot annexes, deep Taproot control blocks, OP_SUCCESS opcodes, and certain Tapscript conditionals. It grandfathers UTXOs created before activation, while standard monetary uses remain compatible with its rules.

Most corporations don’t have to do anything 

For most corporations, BIP-110 requires no action. Today, the typical corporate Bitcoin utility is as a store of value, as a long-duration treasury reserve asset. This use case is basically unaffected by the transaction features targeted by BIP-110.

Corporations using Bitcoin for payments also face limited direct impact. Standard on-chain payments remain compatible (see below for specifics), while ordinary Lightning payments occur off-chain. A chain split can still affect Lightning channel monitoring, force-close behavior, and the chain source that a Lightning node treats as authoritative. However, even corporations using Bitcoin for payments normally use a third party provider like Square, so all of this abstracted away to be a non-issue. 

A corporation that runs its own full node has a direct choice. Every user retains the right to run the Bitcoin implementation that matches its needs. A corporation that supports BIP-110 should therefore switch over to running BIP-110. All other node-running corporations can simply do nothing. 

A BIP-110 node enforces tighter rules. During mandatory signaling, it rejects blocks that fail to signal bit 4. After activation, it also rejects blocks containing transactions that violate BIP-110. A non-BIP-110 node accepts BIP-110-compliant blocks as well as blocks that remain valid under the existing rules. Among all chains valid under its own rules, a node follows the branch with the greatest accumulated proof of work.

So the key factor to be aware of is a chain split. When miners build a chain that is not compliant to the BIP, BIP-110 nodes can separate from the broader network. Non-BIP-110 nodes may continue following the higher-work branch, while BIP-110 nodes could remain on a compliant branch with less accumulated work. 

Corporations dealing with chain splits 

Mining companies face the highest immediate economic exposure. Electricity and machine time are sunk costs. A miner should select the branch it expects other miners, nodes, and users to recognize and mine on it. A miner may also stop mining and wait for the chain split to resolve. If BIP-110 and non-BIP-110 chains develop independently, miners must track chainwork, signaling, validity under both rule sets, and their own mining pool’s stance, and the market value assigned to each branch.

Corporations operating exchanges and institutional custody should prepare for settlement uncertainty. During an extended split, the ordinary six-confirmation standard loses much of its value because each branch can show six confirmations independently. Operators should monitor both branches, raise confirmation requirements, pause large deposits or withdrawals when risk rises, and delay final settlement until one branch has decisively accumulated more work or the transaction has sufficient depth on all viable branches. Different validation rules can produce chain splits, false confirmations, and double-spend risk.

Let’s consider a chain split occurring at block height S. 

Suppose a deposit appears on Chain A at S+4 and on Chain B at S+6. Once both chains reach S+12, the deposit has substantial depth on each branch (assuming we are still using six-confirmations). Now, this number of six confirmations should change depending on the work on each branch. And it might be the case that the number of confirmations one would like to see would be different for each branch. The main point is that the operator must wait until both branches reach the requisite confirmations. The operator can at that point be confident that the transaction remains, not matter which branch becomes canonical.

If the transaction appears on only one branch, the operator should wait for that branch to win or apply chain-specific accounting. That would be the only way to ensure no double spending happens. In practice, monetary transactions should always eventually appear on both branches, since the BIP-110 chain does not prohibit monetary transactions.

Conclusion 

The main thing to be aware of is a chain split. If there is no split, then there is nothing that needs to be done differently. Even with a chain split, BIP-110 will not create insurmountable disruptions. 

For corporations that may be impacted by a chain split, the main action to take is to lengthen confirmation times and monitor both branches. For node-running corporations that support the BIP, the main action is to start running it on their nodes, if they haven’t already. 

Miners, as usual, should direct their hashrate based on their view of which branch will end up with the most accumulated proof of work. Exchanges and custodians should lengthen settlement procedures and maintain visibility into both chains, should a chain split occur. For the daily operations of most corporate Bitcoin users, BIP-110 changes very little, if it changes anything at all. 

Disclaimer: This content was prepared on behalf of Bitcoin For Corporations for informational purposes only. It reflects the author’s own analysis and opinion and should not be relied upon as investment advice. Nothing in this article constitutes an offer, invitation, or solicitation to purchase, sell, or subscribe for any security or financial product.

This post Corporation’s Approach to the BIP-110 Soft Fork first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Allard Peng.

Bitcoin Magazine

FBI Agent Accused of $1 Million Crypto Theft From ‘Adversarial Nation’ 

A Federal Bureau of Investigation agent allegedly took $1 million in seized cryptocurrencies before turning himself in, according to court records. 

Documents unsealed this week allege Patrick Steven Yaroch, who was a FBI Supervisory Special Agent working at the FBI Headquarters Counterintelligence and Espionage Division, claimed he “was frustrated that the FBI could not or would not act against adversarial cryptocurrency accounts.”

He then proceeded to “take matters into his own hands,” according to the affidavit filed with a district court in Virginia, and transfer $925,426.07 in crypto to his personal wallets over numerous transactions. 

Yaroch then allegedly toyed with the idea of retiring in Portugal with his wife, court documents claim, citing his ChatGPT history, but later confessed to a Department of Justice employee what he had done. 

“Yaroch told DOJ employee 1 that he made some very poor decisions related to cryptocurrency wallets,” court documents read. “Yaroch said that he went into FBI systems and found keys needed to transfer money from wallets to himself.”

A motion for a detention order, made public on Tuesday, added: “The weight of the evidence against the defendant is strong. He confessed to stealing the cryptocurrency from the adverse nations’ wallets.” 

Court filings further allege that Yaroch “previously had access to some of the nation’s most secret and important information. He then chose to misuse this information to steal money, for his own financial gain.”

It adds that the defendant has been charged with two felonies that carry a maximum penalty of 10 years of incarceration each. 

The nation in question has not been named in the documents. 

The court documents made public this week only briefly mention that Yaroch had a tiny amount of Bitcoin in his Kraken account; the vast majority of his funds were held in stablecoins. 

Yaroch, from Ashburn, Virginia was fired from the FBI on July 31, and investigations are ongoing, according to the court documents. 

This post FBI Agent Accused of $1 Million Crypto Theft From ‘Adversarial Nation’  first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bank reserves fell $77.579 billion on a weekly-average basis last week ending July 29. Days later, the US Treasury borrowing estimate for July through September rose by $68 billion. The overlap puts Bitcoin's liquidity setup under scrutiny. Several forces moved across the Fed's balance sheet, blurring any direct line from Treasury cash to the reserve decline.

The US Treasury borrowing estimate released on Aug. 3 puts the end-September cash balance at $950 billion. Against its May 4 baseline, the headline increase is $68 billion. Strip out the $19 billion higher starting balance, and the revision grows to $87 billion, driven mainly by lower projected net cash flows.

The measure excludes SOMA auction add-on rollovers and includes financing needed for SOMA redemptions. It tracks net borrowing, while gross issuance follows a different yardstick. The Treasury release covers government financing. Bitcoin enters the picture downstream through the effects on cash and funding markets.

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Jul 21, 2026 · Gino Matos

The Federal Reserve's H.4.1 release shows weekly-average reserve balances at $2.984570 trillion for the week ended July 29, down from $3.062149 trillion for the week ended July 22. Over the same-dated comparison, the Treasury General Account, its cash account at the Fed, climbed from $829.623 billion to $910.776 billion.

The Wednesday, July 29, snapshot was $2.944541 trillion in reserves and $970.442 billion in the TGA. The $81.153 billion TGA rise was the largest named component of the $89.880 billion weekly-average increase in deposits other than reserve balances. Other Fed balance-sheet items moved too, so Treasury cash was only part of the week's reserve story. Buyer funding sources shape how much pressure reaches bank reserves, and Fed operations can redirect the flow.

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Jun 7, 2026 · Andjela Radmilac

US Treasury borrowing: the Aug. 5 financing mix is the test

Treasury scheduled the Q3 financing details for 8:30 a.m. on Aug. 5. At 1:53 a.m. UTC on Aug. 4, the official quarterly refunding index continued to show the policy statement, auction schedule, and buyback schedule as pending.

The Aug. 5 package will turn a single borrowing total into an actual financing map. Its bill-coupon split and auction sizes show where the weight lands, with the buyback schedule completing the picture. A bill-heavy plan's reserve effect follows buyers' funding sources. More coupon supply leans on demand for longer-dated debt.

In remarks on July 9, SOMA Manager Roberto Perli called reserves ample and warned that heavy net bill issuance in July and August 2026 could tighten money markets. Speaking in his personal capacity, he also left room to adjust reserve-management purchases as conditions change.

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Bitcoin’s next move now runs through Treasury yields, oil pressure, and Fed liquidity as markets test whether risk demand can hold near resistance.

Apr 30, 2026 · Liam 'Akiba' Wright

On Aug. 3, the New York Fed's overnight reverse-repo operation accepted $2.127 billion from four counterparties. That figure is a one-day gauge of facility use. For the week ended July 29, the Fed's broader reverse-repo average was $343.947 billion, with $342.803 billion held by foreign official and international accounts. That balance sits in a separate account category from the domestic overnight facility.

Bitcoin's next macro signal comes from the plumbing. The Aug. 5 financing map will show where Treasury puts the weight. Reserve balances after settlement will show whether the pressure reaches broader risk appetite.

The post Tomorrow sees a massive liquidity trap for Bitcoin as the US Treasury is quietly draining $77 billion from bank reserves appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Bitcoin’s biggest near-term security problem may not be a breakthrough against its cryptography, but the software and hardware already standing between a private key and its owner. As AI gets better at finding seams in that custody stack, even cold storage deserves a closer look.

Bitcoin cold storage shuts one door. The rest of Bitcoin custody still hums with code, chips and human choices. The private key stays off an always-connected device; the machinery around it stays in play.

Coinkite showed how in its July 30 technical disclosure, published in 2026. A 2021 integration change sent wallet seed generation down a MicroPython software fallback instead of the intended hardware random-number path. Later affected models still mixed some secure-element entropy. Coinkite called its numerical estimates preliminary. Bitcoin kept working as designed; the key factory stumbled.

New firmware protects future generation. Seeds created under affected software carry their history. Coinkite tells users to replace those seeds and migrate funds, except when the original independent-dice-entropy condition applies.

Coinkite also floated AI as a possible route to discovery. The disclosure labels that idea an assumption and notes that its own AI-assisted review missed the bug. Smarter agents raise a broader risk across the custody stack, where code paths, build systems and devices offer seams to probe.

Cold storage inherits a supply chain

Before a seed phrase becomes words, it is entropy. BIP-39 starts with computer-generated entropy, adds a deterministic checksum and maps the result to words. The checksum can flag some invalid mnemonics; all randomness still comes from the original entropy. A weak start echoes through every word.

Reproducible-build procedures answer whether a distributed binary matches published source after signatures and headers are accounted for. Source correctness lives one level deeper. COLDCARD's disclosed integration bug sat at that level, ready to appear faithfully in a matching build.

A wallet can receive a bad instruction before it signs. On December 14, 2023, malicious releases of Ledger's dynamically loaded Connect Kit library induced users to sign draining transactions. Ledger reported that its infrastructure, code repositories and integrated decentralized applications remained untouched. Hostile transaction software still reached the approval step before a hardware wallet could sign.

The trust moves through six layers.

Each case depends on a particular defect, compromise or shared dependency. Cold storage is an architecture assembled from those boundaries.

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A valid signature can carry a secret

An air gap closes the network door. A signed transaction still has to leave, creating a mail slot that malicious firmware can misuse.

The Dark Skippy researchers demonstrated a method that can encode seed material into two valid Bitcoin transaction signatures. Those signatures travel through the normal transaction path. Bitcoin accepts them while seed material rides inside. In August 2024, the researchers reported zero known cases in the wild and warned that covert use could be hard to spot.

A related USENIX WOOT 2024 project built an end-to-end backdoored wallet on Bitcoin testnet and leaked a 256-bit seed in 10 valid ECDSA signatures. Each project used a different technique and signature count. Both reveal the same danger: a transaction can satisfy Bitcoin's rules while the device creating it acts against its owner.

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Risk also lives below the signer. In research published July 9, 2026, Ledger Donjon used laser fault injection to bypass a faulty recovery-state check in Tangem firmware, undermining the boundary of an EAL6+-certified secure element. The demonstration required physical possession, advanced expertise, extensive characterization and roughly $250,000 in laboratory equipment.

This was specialist lab work. It also showed that chip certification and firmware logic protect the same boundary; strength in one layer leaves errors in the other exposed.

Recovery adds chosen dependencies. For subscribers who opt in, Ledger Recover distributes encrypted seed shares among backup providers. Identity checks, operational handling and restoration on a new device join the custody chain. Only subscribers who opt in assume those added parties.

Key isolation is one part of cold storage. Failure recovery is another. COLDCARD makes the distinction concrete. Closing a generation bug in firmware leaves existing affected key material in place, so users may need to replace the seed and migrate funds.

AI is learning to hunt the seams

The custody stack gives advanced agents several seams to test around a Bitcoin key.

On July 21, 2026, OpenAI disclosed that models with reduced cyber refusals were running an internal benchmark built to test advanced exploitation. According to OpenAI, they found and chained vulnerabilities across its research environment and Hugging Face's production infrastructure. The benchmark set a general exploitation goal, and the models reached Hugging Face while pursuing it. OpenAI calls the account preliminary, with its investigation and third-party assessment continuing.

Five days earlier, Hugging Face's July 16, 2026, disclosure documented the production compromise and continuing impact assessment. Its initial account left the model identity unknown. OpenAI supplied that attribution later. The demonstrated target was software infrastructure. Bitcoin wallets, key recovery and cryptographic primitives sat outside the episode.

Closer to crypto, work published June 17, 2026, describes Cerberus as a human-in-the-loop agent team that produced implementation-security findings in wallet and payment software. Its scope was software review, separate from autonomous seed recovery and the COLDCARD disclosure.

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Specific future zero-days remain unknowable. Current evidence points to a change in tempo. Stronger AI pentesting may find defects sooner and connect separate weaknesses across the path from seed generation to recovery.

Cold storage cuts exposure. Its strength comes from knowing where trust sits and having a way out when a layer fails.

AI may shrink the time between a coding mistake and its discovery. The pressure lands on human-built custody machinery. Bitcoin's cryptographic core remains intact.

The post Why AI is now a more immediate threat to Bitcoin than quantum computers appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Hyperliquid's HYPE ETFs went 12 trading sessions without a single inflow from July 17 through Aug. 3, 2026, recording $29.8 million in reported net outflows. The drought counted nine negative sessions and three flat ones.

According to Farside Investors, BHYP absorbed $22.5 million of the outflows, far more than THYP's $5.3 million and HYPG's $2 million. Farside's Aug. 3, 2026 entry added a $1 million HYPG outflow; BHYP and THYP were flat.

Earlier inflows across the HYPE ETFs left a deep cushion. Farside's table through Aug. 3, 2026 showed about $283 million of cumulative reported flows across the category, with $106.3 million for BHYP, $50 million for THYP and $126.9 million for HYPG.

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The warning light arrived only weeks after a fast start. CryptoSlate's May 17, 2026 coverage asked whether launch trading could become durable allocation. By June 14, 2026, the products had drawn $161 million in their first month. The flow picture cracked by July 30, 2026, when nearly $27 million had already left.

The token was sliding at the same time. After CryptoSlate's Aug. 3, 2026 market refresh, HYPE traded at $53.94, down 4.53% over seven days and 22.82% over 30 days. HYPE ETFs can see their asset values move with the token separately from share creations and redemptions.

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Dated issuer figures show how AUM can drift away from cumulative flows. Bitwise listed $92.36 million of BHYP AUM and 3.03 million shares on Aug. 2, 2026, with 70% of assets staked. 21Shares listed $50.95 million of THYP AUM and 1.67 million shares on July 31, 2026. Its prospectus describes an intended 30% to 70% staking range. Grayscale listed $109.35 million of HYPG AUM, 5.67 million shares and 94.31% of assets staked on Aug. 3, 2026. Prices, staking rewards, fees and distributions keep those balances moving.

Daily flow tables track dollars while investor identity and motive stay hidden. Farside's page omits end-investor identities and a full methodology. The THYP and HYPG prospectuses add another moving part. Authorized participants create and redeem shares to keep market prices near net asset value, activity that can shape daily flows.

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Jun 23, 2026 · Gino Matos

The HYPE ETFs' flow story has moved from early accumulation to a live durability test. The next print will show whether the drought is breaking or digging in.

The post Investors haven’t added a single dime to HYPE ETFs in 12 days as a $30 million exodus begins appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Poolin Technology and several affiliates entered Chapter 11 on July 22 with two proposed asset sales, worth a combined $52 million, tied to its West Texas mining sites.

Prospective buyer Thor CALAP LLC can terminate either deal over unsatisfactory diligence through Aug. 9, five days before the court's scheduled hearing on the bidding process and sale.

Poolin Wallet customers have the most riding on that deadline, as many have been waiting since the company's 2022 liquidity crisis, when Poolin issued IOUs to roughly 11,700 wallet holders with balances above $100. Its first-day bankruptcy declaration lists over $163.7 million of those IOUs as part of roughly $173.1 million in preliminary prepetition obligations.

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The IOUs and the Texas assets sit in different debtor estates, which is why Poolin Technology is not a seller under either asset purchase agreement. Lonestar Dream Inc. and Lonestar Taproot LLC hold the assets Thor would buy, and Poolin's assets amount to about $1.2 million in cash, an office lease, and an intercompany claim against the two Lonestar businesses.

The sale price reflects the value of the asset packages, and wallet recovery depends on how that value and claim priorities are allocated through the claims process.

Under the amended sale motion and agreements, Thor would pay $37 million in cash for the Tarbush asset package and $15 million for the Pyote package. Deposits of $1.85 million and $750,000, respectively, are already set, with the balances due at closing.

The filed schedules list no additional assumed liabilities, though Thor may still cover cure costs on selected contracts. Lonestar Dream halted mining and hosting operations at the sites on July 10, and the debtors have said they do not intend to resume them.

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Three gates still stand between the offer and any distribution of wallets: Thor must stay in the deals past Aug. 9, the court must then approve a bidding and sale process that could leave Thor’s offer in place or produce another price, and any wallet distribution would still depend on how the estates allocate net value among claims.

Objections to the bidding procedures and sale motion are due Aug. 7. The court has scheduled a hearing for Aug. 14 at 11 a.m. ET, and the motion proposes a Sept. 8 bid deadline, a Sept. 10 auction if needed, and a sale hearing by Sept. 16.

The prepetition marketing process produced three other indications of interest, leaving room for competition without establishing that another qualified offer will emerge.

The amount available to wallet creditors would then depend on estate-specific claims, any valid liens against the net proceeds, transfer taxes, professional fees, other administrative costs, and the treatment of Poolin’s intercompany claim.

Those unresolved variables prevent a responsible recovery percentage, with the useful signals being whether Thor stays past Aug. 9, whether the court approves the process, and whether competition raises the cash price.

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Jun 3, 2026 · Liam 'Akiba' Wright

The post Poolin owes wallet users $163.7M, and its $52M Texas sale can still unravel next week appeared first on CryptoSlate.

October 6, 2025: Bitcoin breaks above $126,000, carried by the belief that its long migration from internet curiosity to a real financial institution is almost complete. Wall Street has ETFs, public companies are raising billions to buy coins, and the White House wants the US to become the world’s crypto capital. After years of regulatory warfare, institutionalization appears to have arrived.

August 3, 2026: Bitcoin trades around $62,600, a little less than half its peak. In the ten months between those dates, Washington hasn’t revived its old crackdown, closed the ETFs or threatened any of the major American exchanges. It has actually kept moving in the opposite direction, supporting the industry, which left the market without explanation for the decline. The legal barriers the industry faced just a year ago were tough, and many of them fell. However, demand still disappeared. The crypto industry faced many hurdles in the previous cycle. Regulatory uncertainty frightened banks, raised legal bills, discouraged American product launches, and made large institutions reluctant to touch the sector.

Enforcement was done through lawsuits rather than existing laws and regulations; custody was prohibitively expensive, and stablecoins had no federal framework to rely on. A coin could trade for years before the SEC announced that everyone involved had been handling an unregistered security.

A company that doesn’t know whether its core product is legal can’t plan hiring, negotiate banking relationships, or estimate its liabilities with much confidence. Asset managers don’t like explaining novel enforcement risk to investment committees, and banks don’t build products around activities their supervisors may later punish. Coinbase’s 2022 rulemaking petition argued that the existing securities framework couldn’t accommodate much of the digital-asset market, while other executives warned that America was pushing talent, capital, and trading activity overseas.

The rhetoric was often too overheated to produce a concrete solution, but the underlying claim was sound: hostile policy imposed a very high cost on the sector.

From there, industry advocates made a larger assumption. Because unfriendly regulation suppressed activity, friendly regulation would produce more users, more institutional capital, more valuable tokens and higher prices. However, while removing a penalty can make an asset easier to own, it doesn’t create a reason to own more of it.

How Washington slowly changed sides

Donald Trump’s return to office brought the reversal almost immediately. A January 2025 executive order endorsed the lawful use of public blockchains and stablecoins, created a presidential working group, and directed agencies toward a framework built around American digital-asset leadership.

A second order established a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve in March, retaining Bitcoin forfeited to the federal government rather than routinely auctioning it and directing officials to explore budget-neutral acquisition strategies.

CryptoSlate’s policy record shows the scale of the government's stance reversal. An asset once discussed in Washington mainly through money laundering, sanctions evasion, and consumer harm had become something the United States intended to hold onto. While the change didn’t create an open-market federal buying program, it gave Bitcoin a level of official legitimacy that would’ve sounded implausible a few years earlier.

The SEC also followed with its own set of actions, launching a dedicated crypto task force and dismantling much of the litigation campaign inherited from the prior commission. Its case against Coinbase was dismissed in February 2025, followed by actions involving Kraken, Consensys, Cumberland, Binance, and others. By April 2026, the agency reported that it had dismissed seven crypto-related cases brought under its former leadership.

The first major federal crypto statute actually came from Congress. The GENIUS Act, signed in July 2025, created reserve, licensing, and disclosure requirements for payment stablecoins. The Federal Reserve withdrew special notification requirements for bank crypto activity, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency reaffirmed that national banks could provide custody and execution services.

The industry didn’t receive every item on its agenda. The reserve was seeded with forfeited Bitcoin rather than a giant federal purchase, spot ETFs had already been approved in January 2024, and the broader market-structure bill remained unfinished in the Senate as Congress approached its 2026 summer recess.

Even so, crypto now had a friendly executive branch, a less aggressive SEC, federal stablecoin rules, wider banking pathways, and routine access to policymakers. Executives could make product decisions without assuming that every new feature would end in federal court.

Those changes amounted to an enormous political victory, but none required investors to keep buying at six figures.

The Bitcoin market wants and needs actual money

Bitcoin reached its all-time high on October 6, 2025. Four days later, a global risk shock collided with a market carrying far too much leverage, and more than $19 billion in positions were liquidated over roughly 24 hours on October 10 and 11. The global market downturn explains the violence of Bitcoin's first violent downward swing, but not the weakness that followed over the next nine months.

By July 1, 2026, Citigroup estimated that US spot Bitcoin ETFs had recorded about $3.3 billion of net outflows for the year. The bank reduced its assumption for 2026 ETF inflows from $10 billion to zero and cut its 12-month Bitcoin forecast to $82,000.

While institutional access remained intact, institutional appetite hadn’t.

We saw the same retreat in exchanges as well. Coinbase’s second-quarter filing reported $599.2 million in transaction revenue, down from $764.3 million a year earlier. Monthly transacting users fell from 8.7 million to 7.6 million, and the company recorded a $359.5 million net loss. Coinbase had expanded into stablecoins, derivatives and other businesses while gaining global trading share, so the numbers didn’t amount to corporate collapse; they just showed a strong exchange taking a larger share of a weaker market.

CryptoSlate’s midyear market review placed Bitcoin near $58,600 at the start of July after a 33% annual decline, with June ETF outflows around $4.5 billion.

Spot ETFs were supposed to end Bitcoin’s dependence on offshore exchanges and crypto-native traders, and they largely did. BlackRock, Fidelity, and the rest made exposure available through the same accounts investors use for index funds, bonds, and retirement portfolios, so the inconvenience of wallets, private keys, and specialist custodians disappeared instantly for most buyers.

But that structure also made selling almost frictionless. A wealth manager who once avoided Bitcoin because custody was annoying can now buy it in seconds, then sell it in seconds. Institutionalization put Bitcoin beside every other liquid asset competing for the same capital, and did nothing to produce permanent or even long-term ownership.

That competition for Bitcoin became tougher in 2026 as cash and government bonds continued to offer income, uncertainty around inflation and rates weakened enthusiasm for speculative assets, and capital moved toward artificial intelligence companies. Investors who had already bought Bitcoin through ETFs or corporate proxies didn’t need another policy announcement to validate the position, as many had reached their allocation limits during the rally.

The reservoir of supposedly bottomless institutional capital turned out to be a two-way market: one in which investors wanted to sell as much as they wanted to buy. They could like Bitcoin’s improved legal status and still think that $100,000 was too expensive.

The corporate treasury machine reverses

Digital asset treasury companies were built to provide recurring demand even when ordinary consumers lost interest. A company issued stock, convertible debt, or preferred shares, used the proceeds to buy Bitcoin, and benefited as its equity traded above the value of its holdings. Issuing more shares could then increase Bitcoin per share instead of diluting it, which lifted the stock, improved financing terms, and funded more purchases.

This depended on investors continuing to value the company at a premium to its Bitcoin. Once that premium vanished, new equity issuance diluted shareholders, debt and preferred dividends remained due, and falling Bitcoin prices weakened the asset base that was supporting this entire business model.

Many treasury vehicles began trading below the value of their crypto holdings, making further issuance an unattractive move no one wanted to make.

Strategy, the largest and best-known example, eventually showed how buying could turn into selling. Between June 29 and July 5, 2026, the company sold 3,588 Bitcoin for roughly $216 million to help fund preferred-stock obligations and replenish its dollar reserve. Its SEC filing also disclosed an $8.32 billion second-quarter loss on digital assets, almost all of it an unrealized accounting loss caused by lower Bitcoin prices.

Strategy hadn’t burned through $8.32 billion in cash, and it still held an enormous Bitcoin position.

The sale was important because the entire treasury boom relied on the belief that these companies would absorb supply indefinitely and never become sellers themselves. CryptoSlate’s analysis of the transaction framed it as a test of a model built on years of accumulation.

Washington could permit the strategy, praise it, and imitate part of it through a federal reserve, but it couldn’t suspend corporate finance and stop companies from facing dividend obligations, rising financing costs, and a disappearing equity premium.

What the policy shift achieved

Despite the massive market downturn, falling prices didn't erase the gains created by friendlier policy. American exchanges are now essentially safe from being litigated out of existence. Banks have firmer authority to offer custody and execution, and stablecoin issuers have a federal framework. Product teams can plan around more predictable enforcement, and companies considering a US launch can assign a lower probability to sudden regulatory attack.

However, most of that value has accrued somewhere other than Bitcoin’s price. The GENIUS Act regulates dollar tokens, payment companies, and Treasury markets without increasing demand for Bitcoin or unrelated crypto assets. Bitcoin holders don’t own claims on stablecoin reserves, issuer revenue, or payment fees.

A dismissed SEC case improves an exchange’s survival odds without improving its product. Bank custody reduces operational risk without forcing an investment committee to raise its allocation. An ETF removes the inconvenience of private keys without making a pension fund ignore volatility. Wider participation from banks and asset managers may also reduce the fees once earned by crypto-native intermediaries.

What policy managed to change is permission, access, and institutional risk. The price decline we saw over the past 10 months showed how often the industry had treated those gains as interchangeable with durable demand and economic use.

Legal permission, institutional access, speculative demand, and everyday use aren’t stages of a single process. An asset can be legal and unwanted, easy to buy and still overpriced, popular with hedge funds and irrelevant to households. A network can move billions of dollars while producing little value for its token, and stablecoins can thrive because people want easy dollars rather than easy crypto.

Bitcoin’s lack of cash flow also makes it less valuable than stocks and other assets to a huge chunk of investors. A stock can eventually support its valuation with earnings, a bond pays interest, and a rental property generates income. Bitcoin depends on future buyers valuing it as scarce digital property, a reserve asset, a macro hedge, or some combination of the three.

Friendly policy strengthens that case by reducing the chance of prohibition and making ownership safer, but it doesn’t settle the price. At $20,000, an allocator may see an asymmetric opportunity. But at $126,000, they may see a crowded position offering no income and substantial downside.

Global liquidity, real interest rates, geopolitical shocks, leverage, and broad risk appetite can overwhelm a favorable SEC announcement. The government can reduce legal uncertainty around an ETF; it can’t make portfolio managers prefer that ETF to cash, gold, bonds or Nvidia.

Crypto’s long fight with Washington offered an external opponent and a sequence of measurable victories: hire lobbyists, fund candidates, win court cases, replace hostile regulators, and pass legislation.

The work ahead isn't nearly as clear and straightforward as that. Companies have to show that customers use their products when prices aren’t rising, that revenue survives a bear market, that security holds up, and that balance sheets work without perpetual access to overpriced equity.

Asset managers have to show that institutional allocations endure drawdowns rather than arrive after rallies. Bitcoin advocates have to persuade the next buyer without relying on the promise that another government announcement will unlock the market.

Supportive policy didn’t make Bitcoin worthless, and hostile policy wasn’t imaginary. Washington removed a lot of constraints and exposed the ones politicians can’t remove: thin marginal demand, leverage, competition for capital, limited everyday use, and investors who may like the asset at a lower price.

Crypto won the argument over whether it should be allowed inside the American financial system. It now has to prove what it can do there. Washington can permit Bitcoin, regulate it, make it institutionally accessible, and keep some in a federal reserve. It can’t decide what the next buyer will pay.

The post Washington gave crypto every legal win it begged for then lost the market anyway appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Seven weeks ago SpaceX pulled off the largest listing in stock market history. Today the stock trades below the price its own IPO investors paid, and the chart tells the story more clearly than any headline has.

$SPCX changed hands around $118.21 on Tuesday morning. That is roughly 44% below the closing record of $211 set on 16 June, about 12% under the $135 offer price, and it comes two sessions after the stock printed an all time low of $104.83. The company reports its first quarterly results as a public company after the closing bell tonight, and its first insider lockup tranche expires on Thursday.

Two events, two days apart, on a stock that has spent seven weeks going one direction.

What actually happened at the IPO?

The deal itself was a success by every conventional measure.

SpaceX priced at $135 per share on 11 June and began trading on the Nasdaq on 12 June, raising $85.7 billion in total. The order book ran more than twice oversubscribed, with roughly $150 billion of demand chasing the raise, and around 30% of the allocation was reserved for retail investors, an unusually large share for a deal of this size. The retail tranche was exhausted before pricing closed, and many investors who applied through Robinhood, Fidelity, SoFi, Schwab, or E*TRADE received partial fills or nothing at all.

The stock opened at $150, closed its first day at $160.95, and by 16 June it had touched an intraday high of $225.64. At that point the market was valuing SpaceX near $2.1 trillion.

One detail from the deal explains much of what followed: SpaceX floated less than 5% of its outstanding shares. A very small float met very large demand, which is a reliable recipe for a high print, and an equally reliable recipe for what happens when that float expands.

How does the chart break down?

Looking at the chart from listing to now, the move splits into five distinct phases.

• Phase one, the launch pop (12 to 16 June). Price ran from the $161 first day close to just above the 200 line within four sessions. Almost 25% in a week, on scarcity rather than fundamentals, since there were no public results to trade on yet.
• Phase two, the first break (17 to 22 June). The chart drops from roughly $190 to about $155 across three sessions, then flattens. That is the point where the initial scarcity premium came out, and nothing in that stretch reads like normal profit taking. It is a gap down in the trend structure.
• Phase three, the index rally that failed (23 June to 7 July). Price built back to about $171 by 30 June into anticipation of Nasdaq-100 inclusion, which formally took effect on 7 July and forced an estimated $4.3 billion of price insensitive buying into the stock. The rally peaked before the event and faded through it. Textbook buy the rumour, sell the news. Anyone who bought the index story at $171 was down 10% within a week.
• Phase four, the grind (8 to 31 July). This is the section that matters technically. Twenty three sessions of lower highs and lower lows with almost no counter rally: $152, then $140, then $127, then $116, then $108.37 on 31 July. The IPO price broke on 15 July, when SPCX traded to an intraday low of $132.15. Trend moves this orderly are usually positioning, not panic.
• Phase five, the reversal (1 to 4 August). The stock hit $104.83 intraday on 3 August, then closed at $114.53, up 5.68% on the day, and has added another 3% since. That is the first higher low on the chart in seven weeks.

One reversal candle after a 50% drawdown is not a trend change. It is a stock that got oversold into two binary events.

Why did the stock fall so hard?

Four overlapping pressures, and only one of them is about the business.

1. The float expansion. The first lockup tranche expires on 6 August, releasing roughly 911.5 million shares worth close to $123 billion at recent prices. That figure exceeds the entire current public float. It is also only the opening tranche of a staggered schedule: five smaller releases of around 7% each land at day 70, 90, 105, 120, and 135 after listing, with another 28% following Q3 results. Supply keeps arriving into December.
2. The short trade. SPCX became the most shorted new listing on Wall Street, with short interest reaching roughly 28% of the float. S3 Partners attributed the build to the combination of price weakness and the approaching lockup, which is a positioning story rather than a fundamental thesis.
3. The funding question. Morgan Stanley put SpaceX's capital requirement at $672 billion with no projected positive cash flow until 2035. The company lost about $4.9 billion in 2025 and roughly $4.3 billion in the first quarter of 2026 alone.
4. The multiple. Even after the drawdown, SPCX trades near 49 times expected revenue. Tesla, for comparison, trades around 15 times. Morningstar's position is that the valuation implies investors wait decades for earnings to catch up to the price.

What does tonight's report need to show?

Consensus sits at roughly $6.8 to $6.9 billion in second quarter revenue and a loss of about $0.23 per share, though the range of analyst estimates runs from a $1.26 loss to a $0.33 profit. That spread tells you how little the market actually knows.

Three numbers carry the weight.

• Starlink. The connectivity unit generated $11.39 billion in 2025, about 61% of total revenue, and it was the only profitable segment with $4.42 billion of income. Subscribers passed 12 million in June, served by a constellation of more than 10,200 satellites. Second quarter Starlink revenue is projected near $3.83 billion. Morningstar expects subscriber growth to slow to 93% this year from 229% in 2025, so net additions and average revenue per user matter more than the headline. SpaceX raised prices in June and added a $10 monthly terminal fee, which should show up here.
• AI spending. The segment produced $818 million of revenue in the first quarter. After xAI rebranded to SpaceXAI on 7 July and the Cursor acquisition, the question is straightforward: is Starlink's cash flow funding an AI business that can grow into a $1.4 trillion valuation, or subsidising one that cannot?
• Starship cadence. Flight 13 deployed 20 Starlink V3 satellites in July. Investors want the timetable for regular operational launches, not another test schedule.

Where are the levels?

On the chart, the immediate resistance is $123, which is where the July slide accelerated. Above that, $150 is the next meaningful shelf, and it is also roughly where the trend broke in Phase two.

Below, $105 is now the reference low, with $100 as the round number that would likely attract attention if it goes. The $175.50 level is worth knowing for a different reason: if SPCX trades 30% above the IPO price on five of any ten sessions, another 10% of restricted shares release early. At $118, that trigger is nowhere close.

Analyst positioning is strikingly disconnected from price action. Twenty eight analysts cover the stock, 27 of them rate it a buy, and the average 12 month target is $236.71, with estimates spanning $62 to $800. Needham raised its target to $250 in mid-July, the same week the stock broke its IPO price. Phillip Securities initiated at Sell on 31 July. Ark Invest bought $16.6 million on the way down.

What is the realistic read here?

The setup is unusually clean, which is rare and worth saying plainly.

If earnings show Starlink margins expanding and management gives credible capital expenditure guidance, a 50% drawdown starts looking overdone, shorts covering 28% of the float adds fuel, and $123 then $150 come into play. If the numbers land soft or guidance is vague, Thursday's lockup stops being a scheduled event and becomes a supply problem into a market that has absorbed this stock badly since June.

The wider lesson has nothing to do with rockets. A sub-5% float produces a price that reflects scarcity, not consensus. Every holder who bought above $150 was buying a number the float was manufacturing. That mechanism is now unwinding on a schedule that runs through December, and no single earnings report changes it.

Five days after the first sweep, the Coldcard incident has stopped looking like a single event and started looking like a slow harvest. Blockchain analysts tracked a fourth round of drains running through Monday, and the running total of observed losses is now closing on $114 million. What has not happened is the price collapse many traders expected. Bitcoin reclaimed $63,000 in Asian hours on Tuesday and touched just above $64,100 overnight, up roughly 2 percent on the day.

That gap between the severity of the security failure and the calm in the order book is the real story right now.

What actually happened to the Coldcard wallets?

The failure was not a phishing attack, not malware, and not physical access to anyone's device. It happened at the moment each wallet was created.

Coldcard firmware calls a function to pull randomness when it generates a recovery seed. Two implementations of that function sat in the codebase with the same signature: the hardware random number generator that Coinkite wrote for the STM32 chip, and a software fallback inherited from MicroPython. A preprocessor guard checked only whether a build setting was defined and never tested its value, so the build completed against the software fallback without a single warning.

The result was seeds that looked completely normal. The firmware kept producing valid BIP-39 recovery phrases, and the values passed routine testing because they appeared random enough, which is exactly why the weakness sat undetected for so long. Block's analysis showed that an attacker able to determine or narrow down the device UID, timer state, and prior call history could reproduce candidate output streams offline, without ever touching the device.

Block traced the change to a commit dated 1 March 2021, shipped in firmware 4.0.0 that same month. That means some of the affected wallets were quietly guessable for more than five years.

How large are the losses now?

The figures have moved every day, and the reason is that different firms are measuring different transaction sets.

The first public number came from Coinkite's own advisory and Chainalysis: roughly 594 BTC, about $38 million, taken from around 500 wallets in a 25 minute window that ended just before 02:00 UTC on 31 July. Galaxy Research then mapped a separate and larger sweep, identifying 1,196 addresses holding about 1,082.65 $BTC, worth roughly $70.2 million, drained across 41 minutes.

A third wave surfaced over the weekend. By Monday the tally across three waves stood at roughly 1,367 BTC, close to $89 million, taken from about 4,585 addresses. The average haul per address fell with each round, which suggests the operator worked through the large balances first and then moved down to wallets worth a few thousand dollars. The fourth wave ran through Monday and took roughly 449 BTC from 709 addresses on the revised count, and Galaxy has not confirmed whether the same operator is behind it.

Add it up and observed losses are in the $114 million to $116 million range, from a bug in a device whose entire purpose was to make this impossible.

Which devices are affected, and does a firmware update fix it?

This is the part that matters most for anyone holding a Coldcard.

Coinkite says the issue covers Mk3 firmware versions 4.0.1 through 4.1.9, and its updated advisory also includes seeds generated on Mk4, Mk5, and Q devices before the latest firmware fixes. The initial advisory suggested Mk4, Q, and Mk5 were clear, so the scope has widened since Friday.

Updating does not repair anything. A weak seed is already a weak seed, and new firmware cannot retroactively add entropy to a key that was generated years ago. The correct sequence is to update the device first, generate a completely new seed, and only then move funds across after verifying the replacement wallet.

Block, Trezor, and Ledger have all confirmed their own devices are unaffected.

Was AI used to find the bug?

Coinkite thinks so, and said as much publicly.

The company assumes someone ran AI tooling over previous versions of its open-source firmware to surface the flaw, and noted that it had put one of the best available models over its own code a few weeks earlier and the model found nothing serious. Its blunt conclusion was that attackers and defenders now hold the same tools, and in this case the tools only helped one side.

There is a second detail worth flagging. Investigators found the operator used a paid account at a well known blockchain services provider to run the queries needed for the sweep, with the provider apparently serving what looked like ordinary requests. Block has handed the information to authorities.

Taken together, the incident redraws the threat model for cold storage. Cold storage guarantees that a key is unguessable. Holders read that as a guarantee that a key is unreachable. Those are not the same promise, and the cost of finding flaws in the first one keeps falling.

Why has Bitcoin held up despite all of this?

Because the money that left those wallets did not leave the market, and because positioning never got panicked.

Options desks show no stress. The 30 day implied volatility index has sat near 37 percent for several sessions, and the most traded contracts on Deribit are calls at $68,000 and $70,000, which are bullish bets. Spot flows told a similar story: ether funds took small inflows while Bitcoin funds saw an outflow, an unusual split for a market where BTC normally leads.

The bigger drag on price this week arguably is not the hack at all. Strategy disclosed on Monday that it sold 1,638 BTC for about $105 million between 27 July and 2 August, its third sale of 2026, at an average price of $63,957 against a cost basis of $75,419. Proceeds went to preferred dividends and STRC buybacks rather than back into Bitcoin. Holdings now sit at 842,138 BTC and the company has not bought any in more than five weeks.

A treasury company selling below its own cost basis is a clearer signal about demand than a wallet exploit is.

What should holders take from this?

Three practical points.

First, verify at creation, not after. Every major failure of this class, including the 2023 Milk Sad PRNG bug, happened at the moment the wallet was made, which is the one moment a user cannot independently check no matter how disciplined they are afterwards. Generating a seed with a verifiable process, or splitting risk across devices from different manufacturers, addresses that directly.

Second, single vendor concentration is a risk in itself. Roughly 500 holders in the first wave alone shared the same failure because they shared the same supply chain.

Third, keep the numbers in perspective. TRM Labs counted 207 separate incidents in the first half of 2026, the most ever recorded in a half year period, yet total losses came to about $972 million, less than half the $2.3 billion stolen in the first half of 2025. More attacks, smaller hauls. The Coldcard event is severe because of where it broke, not because of its size.

What to watch next

The immediate level is $63,000, which has been reclaimed and lost twice in three days. A third failure would point to thinner support below $62,500. Beyond price, two things will shape the aftermath: whether consumer protection or financial regulators respond at all, which will tell us how governments intend to classify hardware wallets, and whether Galaxy confirms the fourth wave came from the same operator or a copycat working from published research.

Crypto news today is dominated by macro. The US ISM Manufacturing PMI came in at its strongest level in more than four years, oil crashed after Washington called off strikes on Iran, US equities opened sharply higher, and Bitcoin pushed back above $63,800. On the policy side, Bernstein published a note on what happens to crypto if the CLARITY Act dies in the Senate.

Here is everything moving the crypto market today.

Where is the crypto market today?

The market is broadly green, but this is a grind higher rather than a melt-up.

$Bitcoin trades around $63,780, up roughly 1.1% over 24 hours, after defending support near $62,500 over the weekend and reclaiming the $63,800 area during US hours. $Ethereum sits near $1,850, $XRP around $1.08 and Solana close to $73. $Cardano is the standout of the week, trading near $0.187 after a gain of more than 14%.

Two things are capping the move. Bitcoin is still trading below its 50-day, 100-day and 200-day EMAs at roughly $64,680, $67,200 and $73,000, so this remains a recovery inside a downtrend. And sentiment took a hit from the Coldcard hardware wallet exploit over the weekend, in which roughly 1,367 BTC was stolen, reopening the self-custody security debate.

Why did the ISM PMI print move markets?

The July ISM Manufacturing PMI registered 55.6, up 2.3 points from June's 53.3 and comfortably above the 54 consensus. That is the highest reading since May 2022 and the seventh consecutive month of expansion in US manufacturing.

The internals backed up the headline. Production surged to 58.5 from 52.2, New Orders rose to 56.7, New Export Orders returned to expansion at 53.0 from 48.5, and Employment moved back above the line at 52.8 from 49.7. Only Inventories slipped, by 0.2 points.

The number crypto traders should care about most is Prices Paid, which eased to 71.1 from 73.0. Strong growth with cooling input costs is the mix risk assets like best: expansion that does not immediately force the Fed to turn hawkish again.

Crypto X was quick to note that this is the seventh straight print above 52, a streak last seen in Q4 2020, right as the biggest bull run in crypto history began. Worth flagging, but treat it as context rather than a signal. The 2020 setup also came with zero rates and mass stimulus that simply do not exist in 2026.

What did the oil crash do to stocks and yields?

Energy was the bigger driver of Monday's risk-on tone. President Trump said over the weekend that he had called off planned strikes against Iran and that talks would resume Monday, with a focus on reopening the Strait of Hormuz.

Crude repriced hard. WTI fell close to 8% at the lows, trading down through the mid-$78s before stabilising near $79.60, while Brent dropped more than 5% into the low $83s. OPEC+ added pressure by approving another production increase of roughly 188,000 barrels per day from September. Context: Brent rallied around 25% in July on war risk, so this is a geopolitical premium unwinding rather than a demand collapse.

Equities took the handoff. The Dow climbed 600 to 700 points in morning trade, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq both gained over 1%, Amazon crossed $3 trillion in market value for the first time, and the 10-year Treasury yield fell roughly 6 basis points to about 4.69%.

That chain is what matters for crypto: cheaper oil leads to lower inflation expectations, which leads to lower yields, which leads to more room for the Fed to cut.

What is Bernstein saying about the CLARITY Act?

This is the piece of today's crypto news being spun hardest on social media, so worth stating plainly.

Bernstein's research team, led by Gautam Chhugani, said in a Monday note that the odds of the CLARITY Act passing in 2026 are fading, with the Senate holding only the coming week before recess to move what the analysts describe as the most consequential crypto market structure bill in US history. Galaxy Research recently cut its odds of passage to 30%, and Polymarket traders now price it near 31%, down 9 points on the month.

Bernstein's base case if the bill fails is not bullish in the near term. The analysts expect an immediate negative reaction across digital assets and see room for another leg lower in valuations.

The constructive part is what follows. Bernstein expects the SEC and CFTC to accelerate rulemaking under Project Crypto regardless, moving faster on token taxonomy, DeFi guidance, self-custody rules and an innovation exemption for token issuance. CFTC Chair Michael Selig has warned publicly that regulators would end up writing all the rules if Congress does not act, and SEC Chair Paul Atkins has said his agency stands ready to fill the gap. Bernstein also sees the current downturn bottoming in late Q3 or early Q4, ahead of the midterms.

The honest read: crypto clarity is coming either way, but the legislative route is faster and more durable, and the regulatory route may cost the market a drawdown first.

What should crypto traders watch next?

• $64,100. CoinGlass liquidation data shows a cluster of leveraged shorts between roughly $63,800 and $64,100, with further liquidity near $64,300, $64,800 and $65,000. A decisive break through $64,100 could squeeze them. On the downside, the largest nearby band sits at $61,900 to $62,200.
• The Senate calendar. One week remains before recess. Silence into the break is effectively a no on the CLARITY Act this year, and Bernstein expects that to be sold before it is bought.
• Friday's nonfarm payrolls. Consensus looks for roughly 87,500 jobs in July versus 57,000 in June, with unemployment ticking up to 4.3%. A soft print alongside cheaper oil strengthens the rate-cut case crypto bulls are leaning on.

Strong growth, falling energy prices, falling yields and regulatory movement in one direction or another is the best macro mix crypto has had all summer. It is still not the same thing as a bull run starting today.

$XRP is trading at $1.0662 on the Bitstamp daily chart as of 3 August, down 1.75% on the session after opening at $1.0858 and printing a low of $1.0618. That is roughly 43% lower on the year and about 70% below last summer's high near $3.65. Every conversation about buying XRP at these levels starts from the same place: the chart is cheap relative to 2025, and cheap relative to 2025 has been a losing argument for eight months straight.

So the question is not whether XRP looks discounted. It is whether the technical structure and the macro calendar give a buyer anything to work with. Here is what both are saying.

XRP Price Analysis: Good Technicals Shaping up

The single most important line on the chart is the 200-day EMA at $1.39699. Price is 31% below it, and the average itself is sloping down. That is the definition of an established downtrend, and it means every rally since June has been a rally inside a bear structure, not a recovery from one.

Below that, the levels stack up cleanly:

• Resistance: $1.15, then $1.20, then $1.30, with $1.45 and $1.50 marking the May breakdown zone
• Support: $1.00, the green line that has been tested repeatedly since late June and has not given way

Between those two clusters is where XRP has spent the last nine weeks. The June collapse took price from $1.30 down to the dollar in a matter of days. Since then the token has chopped between roughly $1.00 and $1.19 with a series of slightly lower highs, which is compression rather than accumulation until proven otherwise.

RSI (14) reads 46.51 with its signal line at 43.83. Both sit below the 50 midline. That is not oversold, which matters: the June low pushed RSI toward 30 and produced a bounce. At 46 there is no coiled spring here, just a market with no momentum in either direction.

Has XRP Coin Broken Its Downtrend or Just Paused?

This is the one mildly constructive detail on the chart. The descending trendline drawn from the May high near $1.50 has been sloping down through every bounce since, capping rallies in June and again in mid July. As of the start of August, price has moved above it.

The problem is what happened next, which is nothing. A trendline break that is not followed by expanding volume and a higher high is not a reversal signal, it is a lapsed constraint. XRP has broken the line and then immediately drifted back toward the middle of its range on a red daily candle.

For the break to mean anything, buyers need to close the token above the $1.15 shelf and then reclaim $1.20. Analysts tracking the same structure have converged on that zone as the real trigger. BeInCrypto's analysis puts the bullish threshold at a three-day close above $1.22, roughly a 10% move from here, and argues that this is the level that would pull ETF desks back into the market.

Until that happens, the more honest read of the chart is a range with a firm floor and a heavy ceiling.

Why Is the $1.00 Level the Whole Story?

Because it is the only support left that has been proven. There is no meaningful horizontal structure between the dollar and the mid $0.80s on this timeframe, which means a decisive daily close below $1.00 opens a fast move toward $0.95 and then $0.85.

That asymmetry is what a buyer at $1.06 is actually taking on. Upside to the first real resistance at $1.15 is about 8%. Downside to the first real target below the range is about 20%. The reward-to-risk only improves if you are buying much closer to the dollar, which is exactly why most desks are treating $1.00 to $1.02 as the accumulation zone rather than current spot.

What Macro Events Are Driving XRP In August?

Three things, and none of them are helping right now.

• The Fed has taken itself off the table. The FOMC held rates at 3.50% to 3.75% on 29 July, the fifth consecutive hold, on a 9-3 vote with the dissenters pushing for a hike rather than a cut. Chair Kevin Warsh again declined to offer forward guidance, leaving September's path unclear. A restrictive Fed with no cut priced in means liquidity stays tight and leverage stays expensive, which is a structural headwind for altcoins specifically.
   
• Bitcoin is not providing a bid. BTC closed July around the $63,000 level, up roughly 7% for the month but still pressing against a descending trendline from its October 2025 peak, with all major weekly EMAs sloping down above price. Support at $60,000 to $62,000 has held since the June low. XRP has never sustained a rally while Bitcoin trades below its own long-term averages, and analysts widely flag BTC holding $60,000 as the precondition for any altcoin strength in August.
   
• Seasonality is genuinely bad. August is the flattest month in XRP's history at a 0.43% average return, and the token has closed the month red four years running, the longest active losing streak of any month. Analyst ChartNerd notes that in US midterm election years the picture is worse: August 2014 fell 5.7%, 2018 dropped 23%, and 2022 lost 13.7%, averaging around a 14% decline. 2026 is a midterm year. Seasonality is not a trading signal on its own, but it is a reason not to expect a catalyst to arrive out of nowhere.

Demand data matches the mood. Per BeInCrypto, US spot XRP ETF flows registered exactly zero on 10 of July's 17 trading days, with net monthly demand of roughly $12.4 million against a fund complex holding about $997 million. Daily value traded fell about 37% across the month. Institutional desks are not selling XRP, they have simply stopped showing up.

Does the CLARITY Act Still Matter For XRP?

It matters more to XRP than to any other major token, and its odds are getting worse.

The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act would write XRP's commodity classification into federal statute and move oversight from the SEC to the CFTC. The SEC and CFTC already named XRP a digital commodity in a joint action on 17 March 2026, but that was interpretive guidance, not law, and a future set of regulators could withdraw it. Pension funds, bank trust desks and asset managers have been waiting on permanence, not interpretation.

The bill passed the House 294-134 in July 2025 and cleared the Senate Banking Committee 15-9 on 14 May 2026. It has sat on the Senate floor calendar since 1 June without a scheduled vote. In late July the Senate formally shelved it to prioritise a Russia sanctions bill and nominations. The Senate returned on 3 August with roughly five working days before recess until 14 September, and Polymarket odds for 2026 passage have slid to around 30%.

This is the crux of the bull case and the bear case at the same time. Standard Chartered's conditional $8 target requires full Senate passage plus $4 billion to $8 billion in fresh ETF inflows. Without a floor vote, that number is theoretical and the primary institutional catalyst for XRP disappears until at least late 2026, plausibly 2027 given the midterm calendar.

There is real progress on the technology side. The XRP Ledger's v3.3.0 release targets institutional onboarding, a validator vote is pending on an amendment package covering batch transactions, confidential transfers, sponsored fees and permission delegation, and Ripple Swell runs 27 to 29 October in New York. None of that has moved price in eight months, which tells you what the market is actually waiting for.

So Is XRP Coin a Good Buy At Current Prices?

At $1.06, XRP is a fair buy for a patient position and a poor buy for a trade.

The case for buying is that the downtrend line has broken, the dollar floor has held through five separate tests, exchange supply is reportedly at a seven-year low, sell volume is thin rather than accelerating, and the CLARITY Act remains a live catalyst that would re-rate the asset quickly if it passes. Consensus forecasts cluster around a $1.00 to $1.20 August range with a month-end print near $1.10, which is a market with a floor.

The case against buying now is the reward-to-risk. You are paying 6% above the level where the real support sits, into the weakest month in the token's history, with the 200 EMA 31% overhead and sloping down, RSI below its midline, ETF flows at zero, and the single catalyst that matters priced at 30% odds and running out of legislative calendar.

The practical read: scale in near $1.00 to $1.02 rather than chasing here, treat a daily close below $1.00 as the invalidation, and require a three-day close above $1.20 to $1.22 before treating any bounce as the start of a trend rather than another lower high. If the Senate schedules a floor vote before recess, that timeline compresses fast. If it does not, September is the earliest the story changes.

At the end of July 2026, one of the most closely watched funds in global markets lost roughly three quarters of its assets in a matter of days. Situational Awareness, the artificial intelligence fund founded by former OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner, was forced to sell its entire public equity book to Ken Griffin's Citadel at a discount after prime brokers issued margin calls it could not meet.

The story matters to crypto readers for reasons that go well beyond schadenfreude at a leveraged blow-up in another asset class. The collapse ran on mechanics that anyone who traded through 2022 will recognise instantly, it involves a figure whose career began inside the FTX orbit, and it arrived in the same weeks that Bitcoin quietly broke its correlation with the AI trade. Several crypto-native companies are now carrying AI infrastructure risk directly on their balance sheets.

Who is Leopold Aschenbrenner?

Aschenbrenner is a German investor and former AI researcher, born in 2001 or 2002 to parents who were both doctors, and educated at the John F. Kennedy School in Berlin. He entered Columbia University at 15 and graduated as valedictorian in 2021 at the age of 19, with a degree in economics and mathematics-statistics.

His early career included a stint at the FTX Future Fund, the philanthropic arm of Sam Bankman-Fried's exchange, where he helped run a charitable operation from the Bahamas. He then joined OpenAI's Superalignment team, the group tasked with controlling systems more capable than humans.

OpenAI dismissed him in April 2024 over an alleged information leak. Aschenbrenner disputes that account. He has said he shared a largely non-confidential planning document with outside researchers for feedback, and that his dismissal followed tensions over warnings he had raised about the company's security practices. OpenAI has said those concerns were unrelated to his departure.

In June 2024 he published "Situational Awareness: The Decade Ahead," a 165-page essay arguing that artificial general intelligence was arriving faster than almost anyone understood, and that the resulting demand for compute, energy and hardware would be historic. The essay became required reading across Silicon Valley. The following month, he turned it into a fund of the same name.

The trade was the essay. If AI capability scaling continued, then semiconductors, memory, data centres and power infrastructure were the bottleneck, and owning that bottleneck with leverage was the highest-conviction expression of the thesis. Backers included Stripe co-founders Patrick and John Collison, former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman and investor Daniel Gross. Jane Street was also an investor. The Wall Street Journal reported gains of more than 1,000% since inception.

Reported peak assets vary by source. CNBC put the fund's high-water mark at around $45 billion, while other reporting has cited roughly $20 billion in assets under management at peak. Either figure represents an extraordinary amount of capital for a manager who had never run money before founding the fund at 22.

What exactly happened to Situational Awareness?

The unwind ran over roughly two weeks in late July.

The fund's concentrated positions in AI infrastructure names, reported to include SK Hynix, CoreWeave, Nebius, Micron and Bloom Energy, fell between 35% and 47% during the month. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index dropped 28.6% from its 22 June peak as investors began questioning whether hyperscaler capital expenditure could ever generate adequate returns. A separate short position against software stocks reportedly went against the fund at the same time, compounding the damage from both directions.

Then the leverage did what leverage does. Reports put the fund's gearing at as much as 400%. At four times leverage, a 25% decline in the underlying positions is mathematically sufficient to erase an investor's entire equity contribution. The positions fell considerably further than 25%.

Prime brokers Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan and Bank of America issued margin calls. The fund attempted several escape routes: a capital raise letter to existing investors, discussions with lenders, and negotiations with Millennium Management and Jane Street Group. According to reporting in the Financial Times, all of them failed. Citadel stepped in and bought the entire public book at a discount.

Assets fell from roughly $45 billion to around $10 billion. Reporting since suggests the fund may still be forced to liquidate further holdings.

There is a revealing postscript. Once Citadel had absorbed the position, the Nasdaq gained 3.30% and the semiconductor index rose sharply. Much of the late-July decline in AI infrastructure names had been the market pricing in a large, visible, forced seller. Removing him removed the discount.

The timing was unusual in one further respect: Aschenbrenner married Avital Balwit, chief of staff to Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, in California the same weekend the fund was being unwound.

Why does an AI fund blow-up matter for crypto?

Three reasons, in ascending order of importance.

The first is that this is a familiar story with different tickers. A young quantitatively gifted manager builds a totalising thesis about the future, expresses it through extreme concentration and heavy leverage, produces spectacular returns that attract enormous capital, and then discovers that leverage is symmetrical. Crypto has run this experiment repeatedly. The specific detail that closes the circle is that Aschenbrenner's first significant job was at the FTX Future Fund, and that Jane Street, where Bankman-Fried himself trained, appears in this story both as an investor and as a failed rescue counterparty.

The comparison should not be pushed too far. There is no allegation of fraud, no customer funds, no missing assets. Situational Awareness appears to have been a legitimate fund that took a directional view and lost, which is a categorically different thing from what happened at FTX. But the underlying behavioural pattern, that of narrative conviction plus leverage minus risk management, is the same one that has cost crypto investors more money than any hack.

The second is that the mechanics are identical to a liquidation cascade. Concentrated leveraged longs, a price decline, a margin call, a forced seller who must sell into a falling market, and a well-capitalised buyer waiting to take the other side at a discount. Crypto traders watch this happen on-chain and on exchange liquidation feeds constantly. On 13 July, when the Kospi fell 8.95% and SK Hynix dropped 15.37% in its worst session on record, $253 million in leveraged crypto positions were force-liquidated in parallel, with long positions accounting for 76% of the total. Same physics, different venue.

The third, and most consequential, is what crypto did not do.

Why did Bitcoin not follow AI stocks down this time?

For most of 2026, crypto traded as a high-beta expression of the AI trade. It rose when chip stocks rallied and fell when they slipped. That relationship broke in July, and it broke twice inside five sessions.

When roughly $797 billion came off the largest US technology stocks in a single Thursday session in late July, $Bitcoin barely moved. On 29 July, as Asian equities suffered one of their worst two-day stretches of the year and SK Hynix fell nearly a fifth despite growing quarterly profit more than sixfold, Bitcoin rose about 1% to $63,800. Ether added 1% to $1,899, XRP gained 2% to $1.07, and Solana held around $73. When Citadel absorbed the Situational Awareness book and AI infrastructure names rebounded sharply, crypto markets were largely unmoved in the other direction as well.

Across July as a whole, Ether gained 16.29% and Bitcoin 5.61%, while the AI infrastructure complex was being repriced downward.

The interpretation matters. One reading is that Bitcoin is regaining independence as an asset class, driven now by rate expectations, ETF flows and its own regulatory calendar rather than by sentiment toward Nvidia's supply chain. Analysts increasingly describe crypto as behaving like a liquidity sponge, expanding and contracting with global money supply and real rates rather than with any individual equity narrative. Research has attributed roughly 45% of weekly Bitcoin price movement in 2026 to ETF flows alone.

A more cautious reading is that two weeks is not a trend, and that decoupling claims have been made and abandoned repeatedly since 2020. The honest position is that the correlation has weakened materially and visibly, and that the next genuine risk-off event will test whether that is structural or coincidental.

Which crypto companies are actually exposed to the AI trade?

This is where the story stops being an analogy and becomes direct exposure. A significant portion of the Bitcoin mining industry has spent two years converting itself into AI infrastructure, and it is now priced accordingly.

Miners owned the two things AI companies most needed: large contracted power capacity and physical data centre real estate. After the 2024 halving compressed mining economics, pivoting that capacity toward high-performance computing and AI hosting became the sector's dominant strategy. Leasing activity grew from 95 MW in the first quarter of 2026 to 1.19 GW in the second, with a further 928 MW announced in the third quarter through 27 July, bringing the year-to-date total to 2.21 GW. TeraWulf signed a $19 billion lease with Anthropic. Hut 8, IREN and Applied Digital accounted for the bulk of capacity signed this year.

That pivot worked in both directions. When AI infrastructure sentiment cracked in July, these names fell harder than the underlying asset they were named after. IREN dropped 33% over a month, TeraWulf 38% and Applied Digital 36%, against a 13% decline in the broader Global X Data Center and Digital Infrastructure ETF. Over July specifically, MARA Holdings fell 18.14%, IREN 19.40% and Riot Platforms 23.08%, while spot Bitcoin gained. Their beta figures explain the sensitivity: IREN carries a five-year monthly beta of 4.28, TeraWulf 4.26 and Applied Digital 5.68.

Analysts at KBW made the sharpest observation about what was actually repriced. The selloff, they argued, primarily removed the value that markets had assigned to future AI and HPC leases rather than repricing completed projects. In other words, the market stopped paying for pipeline and started paying only for signed contracts with creditworthy tenants. KBW downgraded Core Scientific to Market Perform and flagged a new category of danger it called model-layer risk: if an AI lab tenant fails to meet expectations, the developer holding the lease is exposed.

CoreWeave, one of Aschenbrenner's reported core positions, illustrates the whole loop. It began life as an Ethereum mining operation before becoming an AI cloud provider, attempted a merger with Bitcoin miner Core Scientific that failed, and has since fallen 61% from its mid-year high of $187, shedding roughly $33 billion in market value in six weeks amid short-seller criticism and doubts about GAAP profitability. A company born from crypto mining became the most crowded position in the AI trade and then one of its largest casualties.

What should crypto investors take from this?

1. Leverage is the mechanism, never the thesis. Aschenbrenner's core argument about AI compute demand may still prove correct over a decade. It did not matter. Four times leverage meant a 25% drawdown ended the position regardless of whether the ten-year view was right. Being early and levered is indistinguishable from being wrong.
    
2. Concentration risk compounds narrative risk. The fund held a handful of names expressing a single idea. When the idea was questioned, every position moved together and there was nothing to sell that was not already falling. Crypto portfolios built entirely around one cycle narrative carry the same structure.
    
3. Watch the miners as the transmission channel. If the AI infrastructure repricing continues, it reaches crypto through mining equities before it reaches spot Bitcoin. The KBW distinction between contracted revenue and speculative pipeline is the most useful analytical frame currently available for that sector.
    
4. Treat the decoupling as provisional. Bitcoin's independence through two separate AI routs is real and measurable. It is also recent. The immediate calendar offers a test: US payrolls on 7 August and CPI on 12 August, with a September rate decision that markets price at 61.4% for a hike. If Bitcoin trades on those numbers rather than on the semiconductor tape, the case strengthens considerably.

The ChatGPT maker released emails and text messages it says expose factual errors in Apple's lawsuit and undercut claims that former Apple employees brought confidential information to the company.

Ledger CTO Charles Guillemet says the Coldcard exploit underscores why certified hardware randomness matters—and why AI is reshaping wallet security.

The CNBC host announced the decision on air after interviewing IBM CEO Arvind Krishna, asking him whether quantum computers could eventually crack the cryptography protecting his coins.

Dozens of arrests tied to opposition against AI data centers underscore how local disputes over massive computing projects are growing into a national political movement.

A flaw in Coldcard wallets cost Bitcoin holders more than $100 million—and reopened an old fight about whether you can trust dice.

The SEC's case against Ripple remains one of the defining moments of his tenure and a lasting chapter in crypto history.

The XRP Ledger (XRPL) is expanding its interoperability capabilities with the launch of native cross-chain transfers through Axelar Network.

Coinbase Vice Chair Ryan VanGrack remains confident that the CLARITY Act can still clear Congress before the August recess despite growing political headwinds.

Traders push Hyperliquid past a $4 billion milestone, ditching classic crypto for 24/7 tokenized shares of SK Hynix and Micron.

The number of holders in the XRP Ledger real-world asset (RWA) ecosystem has surged by over 25% as Ripple continues to boost tokenization on the blockchain.

TLDR

• Arista revenue jumps 37.7% as quarterly sales cross $3 billion for the first time.
• ANET stock surges after hours as earnings and margins beat prior-year levels.
• Non-GAAP EPS rises 39.7% to $1.02 as Arista strengthens operating performance.
• Arista launches 1.6 Tbps AI networking systems designed to lower power usage.
• Third-quarter guidance targets $3.3 billion revenue and up to $1.08 per share.

Arista Networks (ANET) shares delivered record quarterly revenue as demand strengthened across cloud, data center, campus, routing, and artificial intelligence networking markets. The company also raised expectations with strong margins, higher earnings, and a firm third-quarter revenue outlook. ANET stock closed 3.04% higher at $190.51, then surged 11.61% after hours to $212.63.

Arista Networks, Inc., ANET

Arista Networks Revenue Crosses $3 Billion

Second-quarter revenue reached $3.036 billion, rising 37.7% from $2.205 billion one year earlier. Revenue also increased 12.1% from the first quarter, marking Arista Networks’ first quarter above $3 billion. Product sales generated $2.605 billion, while services contributed $430.5 million during the reporting period.

Gross profit reached $1.910 billion, supported by continued demand for high-speed networking equipment and related services. However, GAAP gross margin fell to 62.9% from 65.2% one year earlier. Non-GAAP gross margin also declined to 63.4% from 65.6%, reflecting changes in product mix and costs.

Operating performance remained strong as GAAP operating income climbed to $1.378 billion from $986.2 million. The GAAP operating margin improved to 45.4%, while the non-GAAP margin advanced to 49.9%. Net income rose to $1.213 billion, compared with $888.8 million during the same quarter last year.

Earnings Growth Supports ANET Stock Rally

GAAP diluted earnings reached $0.95 per share, up from $0.70 in the second quarter of 2025. Meanwhile, non-GAAP diluted earnings increased 39.7% to $1.02 from $0.73 per share. The earnings increase reflected stronger revenue, wider operating margins, and disciplined expense management across the business.

Arista Networks continued expanding its role in artificial intelligence infrastructure through new high-capacity Ethernet systems. The company introduced its 7060XE7 series, delivering 1.6-terabit connectivity and up to 100 terabits of system bandwidth. Its new platforms also include liquid-cooled options for large computing clusters and power-sensitive data center deployments.

The company also developed networking designs for scale-up, scale-out, and scale-across infrastructure. These systems use advanced routing methods to improve cluster efficiency, reliability, and traffic movement. Arista Networks also gained enterprise recognition through Fortune 500 inclusion and Gartner leadership status during 2026.

Arista Sets Strong Third-Quarter Outlook

For the third quarter, Arista Networks expects revenue of approximately $3.3 billion. The company projects a non-GAAP operating margin between 48% and 49%. It also expects non-GAAP diluted earnings between $1.06 and $1.08 per share.

The outlook signals continued demand across cloud providers, enterprise campuses, data centers, and large computing environments. Arista Networks has benefited from increased spending on faster networks supporting intensive computing workloads. Its unified operating software and expanding Ethernet portfolio strengthen its position across several infrastructure markets.

ANET stock reacted sharply after the results exceeded recent performance levels and confirmed continued business momentum. The after-hours gain extended the stock’s regular-session advance and reflected confidence in Arista’s growth outlook. Strong revenue growth, rising earnings, and new networking products supported the positive market response.

The post Arista Networks, Inc. (ANET) Stock: Q2 Revenue Jumps 37.7% as AI Networking Demand Accelerates appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• Kratos Defense revenue climbs 31% as demand strengthens across major units.
• KTOS extends gains after earnings improve and full-year guidance moves higher.
• Valkyrie activity lifts unmanned systems revenue and operating performance.
• Government Solutions growth pushes total quarterly bookings beyond $492 million.
• Kratos raises its 2026 organic growth outlook as backlog tops $2.08 billion.

Kratos Defense (KTOS) stock extended its rally after the company reported strong second-quarter growth and improving defense demand. Shares closed 5.41% higher at $51.87, then added 0.52% after hours to $52.14. The results showed rising sales, stronger bookings, and renewed momentum across unmanned systems and government programs.

Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, Inc., KTOS

Kratos Defense Revenue Climbs 31% in Second Quarter

Kratos Defense reported second-quarter revenue of $458.8 million, up 30.5% from $351.5 million one year earlier. Broad growth across government and unmanned defense operations pushed organic revenue 19.1% higher. The company also generated adjusted EBITDA of $38.2 million during the quarter.

Kratos recorded net income of $4.4 million, compared with $2.9 million during the same period last year. Adjusted earnings reached $0.21 per share, nearly doubling from $0.11 per share in 2025. However, the company recorded a $1.6 million operating loss after research and non-cash expenses.

Stock compensation costs reached $16.3 million, while company-funded research spending totaled $13.6 million. Kratos also recorded $12.5 million in amortization expenses across its growing defense technology portfolio. These investments supported satellites, space systems, unmanned aircraft, and microwave electronics development.

Valkyrie Activity Supports Unmanned Systems Growth

The Unmanned Systems segment generated $79.1 million in revenue, rising from $73.2 million one year earlier. Valkyrie activity drove much of the increase and supported stronger operating performance during the quarter. Segment operating income improved to $1.2 million from a $300,000 loss last year.

Adjusted EBITDA for Unmanned Systems rose to $5.1 million from $3.6 million in 2025. The segment secured $78.4 million in quarterly bookings and maintained a 1.0 book-to-bill ratio. Its total backlog ended the quarter at $374.6 million, almost unchanged from the previous quarter.

Kratos also received $9.3 million from company-owned Valkyrie sales during the reporting period. Meanwhile, production ramps increased inventory and working capital needs across several active development programs. These pressures produced $11 million in operating cash outflow and $18.9 million in negative free cash flow.

Government Solutions Drives Backlog and Forecast Upgrade

The Government Solutions segment produced $379.7 million in revenue, up 36.4% from $278.3 million last year. Organic growth reached 22%, excluding revenue from the Nomad and Orbit acquisitions. Defense rockets, turbines, microwave products, space, training, and cyber operations led the expansion.

Defense and Rocket Support revenue grew 50.2%, while Turbine Technologies revenue increased 43.3%. Microwave Products advanced 29.5%, and Space, Training and Cyber revenue rose 8.7%. Higher sales volume lifted segment adjusted EBITDA to $33.1 million from $24.7 million.

Kratos ended the quarter with consolidated backlog of $2.084 billion and a $15 billion proposal pipeline. Quarterly bookings reached $492.2 million, while the twelve-month book-to-bill ratio stood at 1.3. Management raised its 2026 organic revenue growth forecast to between 18% and 23%.

The post Kratos Defense (KTOS) Stock: Jumps as 31% Revenue Growth and Valkyrie Orders Fuel Q2 Rally appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• SPCX surged 9.43% before falling 5.45% after hours as spending concerns grew.
• SpaceX Q2 revenue jumped 92% to $7.81 billion and topped key market estimates.
• Starlink generated $4.29 billion and remained SpaceX’s main quarterly profit engine.
• AI revenue reached $2.56 billion, but the segment lost $1.26 billion overall.
• SpaceX invested $18.37 billion in AI, Starship and wider Starlink expansion.

Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX) stock jumped 9.43% to $125.33 after second-quarter revenue exceeded forecasts and nearly doubled from the previous year. However, the stock fell 5.45% after hours to $118.50 as capital spending reached a sharply higher quarterly level. The first public earnings report showed strong Starlink and AI sales, while heavy investment kept SpaceX in a net loss.

Space Exploration Technologies Corp., SPCX

Starlink Powers SpaceX Revenue Growth

SpaceX reported quarterly revenue of $7.81 billion, above the $6.93 billion consensus estimate compiled by analysts at LSEG. Revenue increased 92% from $4.1 billion a year earlier, supported by connectivity, launch services, and expanding AI operations. Meanwhile, the company recorded a $541 million shareholder net loss for the three months ending June 30, 2026.

The connectivity segment generated $4.29 billion, exceeding StreetAccount’s $3.83 billion estimate and leading the company’s three operating divisions. Starlink also produced $1.66 billion in operating income, making connectivity the company’s only profitable business segment during the quarter. Demand grew across consumer, enterprise, aviation, maritime, military, and government services as SpaceX expanded coverage across additional international markets.

Lower-priced international plans reduced average revenue per user as Starlink entered more overseas markets with affordable service packages. SpaceX continued launching satellites, increasing network capacity, and developing direct-to-device mobile services for wider coverage and stronger customer access. Those projects strengthened the network’s reach, but higher deployment costs placed added pressure on short-term margins and overall profitability.

AI and Starship Spending Weighs on Earnings

SpaceX invested $18.37 billion in AI infrastructure, Starship development, and expansion of the Starlink satellite network during the quarter. The AI segment generated $2.56 billion, above StreetAccount’s $2.18 billion forecast, following data center and computing capacity expansion. However, the unit recorded a $1.26 billion operating loss as computing, software, staffing, and model development costs increased sharply.

The space segment produced $962 million, beating the $835 million estimate, but posted a $542 million operating loss. Falcon launch activity remained strong, while SpaceX assigned more missions to internal Starlink satellite deployments instead of outside customer payloads. Meanwhile, Starship remained outside commercial service and continued absorbing substantial testing, manufacturing, engineering, and development costs across its program.

SpaceX plans to use Starship for larger Starlink satellites and future orbital computing infrastructure once commercial operations begin. The company also partnered with Nvidia to supply chips for its Starmind AI1 orbital compute satellite program under development. Separately, the post-IPO lock-up period begins expiring Thursday, potentially increasing available shares after June’s record public market debut.

The post SpaceX (SPCX) Stock: Surges 9% as Starlink Drives 92% Q2 Revenue Growth appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• AMD revenue jumps 50% to a record $11.5 billion in a powerful second quarter.
• Data Center sales more than double, rising 107% to a record $6.7 billion total.
• GAAP net income climbs 163% to $2.3 billion as operating margins expand sharply.
• AMD shares gain 7% at the close before plunging 8.49% in after-hours trade.
• Gaming revenue falls 31%, partly offsetting growth across AMD’s core units.

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) stock closed 7.00% higher at $518.58 after the chipmaker reported record second-quarter revenue and stronger profitability. However, the stock fell 8.49% after hours to $474.54 despite broad growth across core businesses. The sharp reversal followed results showing expanding data center demand alongside continued weakness in gaming revenue.

Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., AMD

AMD Posts Record Revenue and Higher Earnings

AMD generated $11.5 billion in second-quarter revenue, marking a 50% increase from the same period last year. Revenue also rose 13% from the first quarter, supported by stronger demand across server and client products. The company reported gross profit of $6.2 billion, more than double the prior-year level.

GAAP operating income reached $2.0 billion, compared with a $134 million operating loss one year earlier. Net income increased 163% to $2.3 billion, while diluted earnings per share climbed 156% to $1.38. Meanwhile, the operating margin improved to 17%, up from negative 2% during the comparable quarter.

On a non-GAAP basis, AMD posted $3.1 billion in operating income and a 27% operating margin. Adjusted net income reached $2.8 billion, while diluted earnings per share increased to $1.66. The company also lifted its adjusted gross margin to 56%, compared with 43% one year earlier.

Data Center Growth Leads AMD Results

Data Center revenue reached $6.7 billion, rising 107% year over year and becoming AMD’s largest business segment. The division represented 58% of total revenue as demand increased for EPYC processors and Instinct accelerators. AMD expects faster Data Center sales during the second half as deployments expand across major cloud platforms.

Client and Gaming revenue totaled $3.8 billion, which marked a 6% increase from the previous year. Client revenue rose 23% to $3.1 billion as demand strengthened for Ryzen processors across commercial and consumer systems. However, Gaming revenue dropped 31% to $779 million because lower semi-custom sales offset graphics card demand.

Embedded revenue increased 19% to $977 million as demand improved across industrial and communications markets. That recovery added another source of growth beyond the company’s data center and personal computer businesses. Together, the segment results showed that AMD relied less heavily on gaming during the quarter.

AMD Expands Data Center and Computing Portfolio

AMD introduced new rack-scale systems, accelerators, server processors, and software tools during the quarter. The company also expanded partnerships with Anthropic, Microsoft, Cerebras, Cisco, Oracle, Meta, and other technology groups. Those agreements support broader deployment of AMD hardware across cloud computing, model inference, and enterprise workloads.

The company launched its MI400 accelerator family and sixth-generation EPYC server processors for large computing deployments. It also released ROCm.ai to simplify development and optimization across AMD platforms. The Helios rack-scale system entered deployment plans at several cloud providers and research organizations.

AMD also expanded its client, embedded, and robotics offerings through new Ryzen, Radeon, Kria, and Versal products. The company extended Socket AM5 support through 2029, giving desktop users a longer platform upgrade path. These launches broaden AMD’s product base while Data Center demand continues to drive revenue and earnings growth.

The post Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Stock: Surges 7% as Q2 Revenue Rises 50% and Data Center Sales Jump 107% appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• Exelon secures $1B in customer protections through expanded TSAs.
• EXC strengthens grid cost protections as AI power demand accelerates.
• Exelon shifts transmission costs to large power users, protecting customers.
• Exelon expands TSAs to support affordable, reliable grid infrastructure.
• EXC advances fair transmission planning amid rising data center demand.

Exelon traded at $45.94, up 0.68%, after the company announced that it had secured more than $1 billion in customer protections through expanded Transmission Security Agreements (TSAs). The milestone is part of the company’s Exelon Promise initiative, which aims to keep electricity affordable by ensuring that large new power users cover the transmission costs they create instead of passing them on to households and small businesses.

Exelon Corporation, EXC

The agreements require major electricity consumers, including data centers and large industrial facilities, to commit financially before connecting to the grid. Consequently, utilities gain greater certainty when planning transmission investments while reducing the financial risks associated with delayed or canceled projects.

Exelon said the framework allows transmission expansion to better reflect verified electricity demand. Besides protecting existing customers from unexpected costs, the agreements strengthen long-term infrastructure planning across the company’s regulated service territories.

AI-driven electricity demand reshapes grid planning

The rapid expansion of artificial intelligence, cloud computing, electrification, and advanced manufacturing continues to increase electricity demand across the United States. Large data centers, in particular, require significant and reliable power capacity, creating additional pressure on existing transmission networks.

As utilities work to meet this demand, infrastructure investments have become increasingly important. However, expanding the transmission system can lead to higher costs if those investments are not allocated fairly. Exelon’s Transmission Security Agreements address this challenge by assigning transmission-related expenses to the customers responsible for creating the additional demand.

The company believes this approach supports responsible infrastructure development while maintaining affordable electricity rates for residential customers and small businesses. The framework aligns with recent regulatory efforts that encourage fair cost allocation for growing electricity loads.

The Exelon Promise also combines customer protections with operational efficiency initiatives designed to strengthen long-term affordability and improve grid reliability as electricity demand continues to rise.

Exelon strengthens its regulated utility leadership

Exelon remains one of the largest regulated electric utility companies in the United States, serving nearly 11 million customers through six regulated transmission and distribution utilities. Its operating companies include Atlantic City Electric, BGE, ComEd, Delmarva Power, PECO, and Pepco.

The company employs more than 20,000 people who support reliable electric service, infrastructure development, and community investment programs across multiple states. As electricity demand continues to grow, Exelon is investing in planning strategies that balance grid modernization with customer affordability.

The latest TSA milestone further strengthens the company’s long-term customer protection strategy. By requiring large electricity users to provide financial commitments before new transmission infrastructure is built, Exelon reduces uncertainty while supporting efficient grid expansion.

With artificial intelligence, data centers and industrial development expected to remain major drivers of future electricity demand, Exelon’s transmission framework positions the company to manage infrastructure growth responsibly. The agreements help protect existing customers from unnecessary transmission expenses while supporting reliable electric service and sustainable investment across its regulated utility network.

The post Exelon (EXC) Stock: Strengthens Grid Cost Protection as AI and Data Center Demand Rises appeared first on Blockonomi.

Bitcoin finished July on a strong note before losing momentum at the start of August with two straight daily closes below $63,000. The decline has raised fresh caution even as blockchain data points to steady buying around current price levels.

That buying activity became clearer in recent on-chain data, which shows roughly 155,000 BTC moved into the $62,000 to $65,000 cost-basis range during the latest pullback. The zone now holds the largest concentration of supply across the market and represents about 0.7% of Bitcoin’s circulating supply.

Accumulation Continues Despite Price Weakness

According to the recent Bitfinex report, the supply cluster expanded while prices declined instead of shrinking through broad selling activity. The report said the pattern suggests buyers absorbed selling pressure rather than existing holders leaving the market in large numbers.

The data also highlights different behavior between long-term and short-term holders during the recent decline. Long-term holders continued accumulating Bitcoin, while many short-term holders reduced positions near their purchase prices.

Despite those signs of accumulation, broader market activity has become more subdued. Bitcoin entered August after recording a 7.3% gain during July, which matched historical seasonal trends for the month. However, spot trading volumes have fallen to levels last seen in late 2023.

Market Sentiment Turns More Cautious

Institutional demand also weakened as U.S. spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds recorded a combined net weekly outflow of $61.5 million. That result ended three consecutive weeks of positive inflows and reflected softer demand from large market participants.

The options market has also turned more defensive as participants paid higher premiums for downside protection. Even so, implied volatility remains close to multi-year lows, suggesting expectations for relatively limited price swings.

Beyond market positioning, broader economic conditions continue influencing sentiment. Second-quarter GDP expanded 1.5%, while private domestic demand rose 3.9%, driven by consumer spending and AI-related investment.

Inflation also remains a focus after personal consumption expenditures prices increased at a 5.1% annualized pace. Meanwhile, the 10-year real yield reached 2.41%, placing it only nine basis points below a level some analysts consider important for non-yielding assets.

The post Bitcoin Holds Key Support as On-Chain Data Shows Fresh Accumulation appeared first on CryptoPotato.

AVAX gained nearly 7% over the past 24 hours after briefly tapping $6.92 on Tuesday before pulling back to $6.79. The token is also up a little over 5% on the weekly timeframe.

The move comes as several developments add activity across the Avalanche ecosystem.

RWA Activity, Stablecoins and Network Upgrades

Securitize has now distributed $976 million in asset value on Avalanche, which is a 123% increase over the past 30 days. The ecosystem has also seen progress on its Helicon upgrade.

The upgrade, which went live on the Fuji Testnet on July 28, brings several changes to the C-Chain. It introduces decoupled, continuous transaction execution, which separates transaction execution from block generation to improve how smart contracts process data.

Helicon also adds Auto-Renewed Staking, which allows validators to opt into automatically renewing their stake and reducing administrative work for network operators. The upgrade also lowers the minimum staking duration, thereby reducing the amount of time tokens must remain locked for staking. It further brings more efficient pricing mechanisms aimed at stabilizing transaction costs on the network.

Separately, Avalanche continues to rank among the leading stablecoin networks. The network’s stablecoin market cap currently stands near $1.5 billion.

It is also the ninth-largest blockchain by RWA holder count, with 9,218 holders, according to RWA.xyz, and ranks behind Robinhood, Solana, BNB Chain, Plume Network, Ethereum, Base, Polygon, and Stellar, while remaining ahead of Arbitrum.

Another notable development for Avalanche came from Japan. Progmat, Japan’s largest security token platform, completed its move to the blockchain last month, bringing more than $2.7 billion worth of tokenized assets onto the network.

The platform migrated from a private Corda-based ledger to a dedicated public Avalanche Layer 1. Progmat accounts for over 64% of the country’s security token issuance value and also includes major tokenized real estate and corporate bond projects.

Inflection Point

AVAX’s latest recovery comes after a month of choppy price action. The crypto asset is trading within a long-term historical demand zone of the $6.4-$7.5 area identified by market expert ‘The Boss.’ The findings reveal that buyers are attempting to slow the decline, which makes it a potential “inflection point rather than just another support level.” The Boss further explained,

“What happens next will define the broader structure. A sustained defense of this demand zone could lay the foundation for a long-term accumulation phase, while a confirmed monthly breakdown would signal that sellers still control the higher-timeframe trend.”

The post AVAX Is Up 7% While the Market Sleeps – These Catalysts May Explain Why appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Ripple’s cross-border token has plunged by 5% over the past month to the current $1.07.

This is just above the crucial $1.06 zone, which, according to some analysts, can trigger the next decisive breakout.

Bulls vs. Bears

Ali Martinez believes that “everything comes down to $1.06 for XRP.” In his view, holding the line could open the door to a rally to $1.35 and even $1.64, whereas losing it might result in a potential slump to as low as $0.62.

X user ChartNerd has also stressed the importance of that level. The analyst noted that XRP found support at $1.06, but claimed there is heavy resistance remaining above the $1.08-$1.23 range and “prior ascending support was lost.”

“$1.16 remains the main roadblock ahead of the EMAs. Downward pressure remains until otherwise,” they added.

Shortly after, ChartNerd touched upon XRP’s bearish outlook amid the challenging times. They suggested that the asset may sweep even below $1 in the near future and that “would not be utterly surprising” given the market structure. At the same time, the analyst described such a potential downtrend as “another golden ticket entry in disguise.”

“The next few months are setting the stage for the next market repricing. Maybe the biggest yet,” they added.

Additional Forecasts

EGRAG CRYPTO and JAVON MARKS also gave their two cents. The former opined that XRP has lost the 50 MA and is approaching the 100 EMA, a zone that has historically provided strong long-term support.

The analyst labeled a possible retrace to the $1-$0.95 range as a “healthy macro retest while holding the 100 EMA.” They set $0.80 as “maximum downside” if XRP tumbles to the lower boundary of the long-term channel, but said the targets of $15, $27, and $50+ don’t shrink and rise in time.

As of now, it’s hard to imagine an explosion to even $15 since it will require the token’s market capitalization to skyrocket to nearly $1 trillion. But then again, no one really knows what the future holds.

JAVON MARKS was also bullish, albeit presenting a far more modest prediction than EGRAG CRYPTO. They claimed that XRP has shown a clear breakout of a key resistance trend and the price can respond by jumping beyond $3.50.

The post XRP’s Most Important Level: The Battle for $1.06 Begins appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Italy’s largest banking group, Intesa Sanpaolo, sharply reduced its reported exposure to BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) in the second quarter.

While its BTC-related position changed, the bank more than tripled its holdings in staked ETH.

IBIT Holdings Plunges

According to its latest Form 13F, Intesa Sanpaolo held 40,723 IBIT shares as of June 30, which was down 93.7% from the 646,809 reported for March 31. The filing also revealed a major change in its reported call position in the fund. The underlying-share amount linked to its held-call row fell from 2,496,500 shares to 18,000, over a 99% decline.

Meanwhile, a new put position equivalent to 500,000 IBIT shares appeared in the June 30 disclosure. The reported figures, however, do not show that the bank adopted a net bearish strategy on Bitcoin.

Its iShares Staked Ethereum Trust ETF holding rose from 116,200 shares to 349,600. On the other hand, its position in the Bitwise Solana Staking ETF dropped from 2,817 to just seven.

The latest filing comes more than a year after Intesa Sanpaolo made its first direct Bitcoin purchase in January 2025. It bought 11 BTC for about $1.03 million. Back in July 2024, it also used the Polygon network to underwrite Italy’s first on-chain digital bond, worth $25.6 million. Later that year, it began offering options, futures and spot ETFs linked to digital assets through a dedicated desk.

Investors Turn to Ethereum ETFs

The bank’s move is significant as some BlackRock clients have recently made a similar shift. For instance, BSCN said customers of the asset management giant had sold around $60 million worth of the IBIT last week. At the same time, they bought more than $20 million worth of its ETHA spot Ethereum ETF.

While Intesa cut its IBIT position, the broader US spot Bitcoin ETF market has recently moved in the other direction. These funds saw a record monthly net outflow of about $4.5 billion in June. The trend reversed in July, when the funds raked in $172.4 million. That marked a turnaround after two straight months of heavy withdrawals and helped BTC’s prices move back toward $64,000 in the middle of the month.

This sentiment appears to have continued into August, as the ETFs have attracted another $170 million so far. BlackRock’s IBIT remains the leading fund, with almost $61 billion in total inflows since it was first listed.

The post Italy’s Biggest Bank Cuts IBIT Exposure by 94% While Buying More Staked Ethereum appeared first on CryptoPotato.

July was quite successful for the second-largest cryptocurrency, with its price rebounding by 18.5%.

Many market observers expect much stronger upside ahead, with that progress potentially spilling over into the broader altcoin sector.

ETH’s Next Targets

The cryptocurrency made several attempts last month to reach the $2,000 psychological level but couldn’t succeed and currently trades at around $1,850. X user Ted paid special attention to that level, predicting a pump to $2K if that zone holds.

“Spot buying is happening, which is a good sign,” he added.

Michael van de Poppe shared a similar thesis. He assumed that holding $1,800 could lead to breaking the $2,000 barrier, and after that “it’s a fast run to $2,300 and higher.”

For their part, Celal Kucuker argued that ETH has “one of the strongest charts” the analyst has ever seen, envisioning an explosion to as high as $13,000 in 2026-2027. Rising to such a peak seems rather implausible considering the persistent bear market and the current prices, but crypto has surprised the community many times throughout its history.

According to the X user, the CLARITY Act could accelerate that move. The long-awaited US crypto bill is meant to give clear rules for digital assets, but its progress has stalled again after the White House failed to respond to a key counterproposal sent by Senators Thom Tillis and Ruben Gallego.

Meanwhile, the amount of ETH stored on centralized exchanges continues to hover around a 10-year low of 15.1 million coins, which supports the bullish perspective since it leads to reduced selling pressure.

Altcoins to Explode?

The analyst who goes by Dami-Defi on X presented another angle of the situation. They think ETH is about to break a one-year downtrend, which could be a precursor to a substantial rally and might be bullish for the broader altcoin sector.

X users Cup and Gordon also laid out their thoughts on the matter. The former believes that altcoins are poised for a serious pump, forecasting that the biggest breakout of this cycle is coming in the next few weeks.

The latter reminded that gold and silver already had their moments of glory, adding that “bonds are cooked,” while “stocks are looking weak.” That said, they moved their focus to the altcoins, claiming “this is where the biggest gains will be made next.”

The post Ethereum (ETH) Is About to Break a Key Barrier: Good News for All Altcoins? appeared first on CryptoPotato.