Bitcoin

Bitcoin Magazine U.S. Treasury Freezes $130 Million Iran-Linked IRGC Crypto Wallet, Tracks Ayatollah’s Assets Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Fox News on Tuesday that the United States froze a crypto wallet linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps worth $130 million, part of a campaign to track the assets of Iran’s supreme leader around the world. “We are tracking these accounts all over the world,” Bessent said, in remarks that framed the Treasury work as one prong of an “economic fury” push against Tehran alongside a blockade. “We froze a crypto wallet linked to the IRGC the other day.” He said investigators had “found the money man for the Ayatollah” and were tracing the holdings of Ali Khamenei, including properties he valued at more than $100 million. Bessent said the Treasury hopes to publish the addresses of those properties. He cast the seizures as a transfer of value to the American people and a squeeze on the regime. Iran’s economy in ‘freefall’ Bessent also described a collapse in Iran’s economy. He said the rial sits at an all-time low against the dollar and called it in “freefall,” with an inflation rate he put “upwards of 180%.” His account tracks the rial slide that has pushed some Iranians toward bitcoin. The comments extend a Treasury campaign that has run through the war between Iran, Israel, and the United States. The department has sanctioned Iran’s largest crypto exchange and said the U.S. has seized $1 billion of Iran’s crypto. Blockchain analysts have tied billions in on-chain flows to IRGC-linked wallets, with such wallets receiving more than $3 billion in 2025, a rise from over $2 billion the year before. In a separate move, the stablecoin issuer Tether froze $344 million in USDT across two blockchain addresses tied to the IRGC, one of the largest single actions in the sequence. Bitcoin’s design draws both sides of the fight. It settles without a correspondent bank or a reserve-currency issuer, a trait that lets Iran monetize oil access outside the dollar system and lets Treasury trace and freeze value on a public ledger. The conflict has reshaped how crypto figures into the region. Since U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran began, bitcoin use inside the country has surged as residents moved value out of the banking system. Tehran, for its part, reportedly moved to accept bitcoin from tankers seeking passage through the Strait of Hormuz, a $1-per-barrel toll that turns its grip on the chokepoint into settlement revenue. The strait carries a fifth of the world’s oil. The war has repriced bitcoin as well. Treasury has not published documentation of the $130 million wallet freeze or the property addresses Bessent referenced. The inflation and currency figures came from his remarks rather than from Iranian data. This post U.S. Treasury Freezes $130 Million Iran-Linked IRGC Crypto Wallet, Tracks Ayatollah’s Assets first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Russia Passes Landmark Crypto Law, Setting State-Run Rails for Sanctioned Trade Russia’s State Duma passed a law on Tuesday that regulates the circulation of crypto and digital rights for the first time, a framework that sets rules for crypto exchanges, digital depositories, and investors while it opens a state-supervised channel for cross-border trade. Lawmakers cleared bill No. 1194918-8, “On Digital Currency and Digital Rights,” in its second and third readings, the final stage in the chamber, according to semi-official Russian news agency Tass. The measure heads to the Federation Council and to President Vladimir Putin for a signature, a process expected to take two more weeks before the law takes effect. It caps a sweeping regulatory push that has moved through parliament across the year. Legalization or taxation? The law does not turn bitcoin into money a Russian can spend at the store. The ruble stays the sole lawful currency for goods and services inside Russia, the ban on crypto payments holds, and a bar on advertising that promotes such use holds with it. What the law does is grant crypto a legal identity and a set of gates. It recognizes digital assets as property, licenses the firms that handle them, lets investors buy within set limits, and clears crypto for use in foreign trade. In plain terms, Russia is not freeing crypto for daily life; it is bringing crypto inside the state’s fence, where the government can watch it, tax it, and steer it toward the uses it wants. Anatoly Aksakov, chairman of the Duma Committee on Financial Markets, said the bill was “aimed at creating legal conditions for the functioning of cryptocurrencies in our country,” and that lawmakers had “maximally” weighed industry feedback. From September 1, 2026, the Bank of Russia will license five categories of participant — exchanges, brokers, management companies, depositories, and exchangers — the spine of the new market. Firms in a special registry may run exchange activity, with a grace period to July 1, 2027, before that requirement takes hold. Such firms must carry minimum capital of 15 million rubles, some $190,000, and must join a self-regulatory body. The law defines exchange activity as the systematic purchase and sale of cryptocurrency for one’s own account outside organized trading, with “systematic” set at two or more deals in a month above 3.5 million rubles. JUST IN: Russia passes law that "regulates the circulation of digital currencies and digital rights in Russia for the first time," TASS reports pic.twitter.com/nmTsKUeOTA — Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) July 21, 2026 A channel for sanctioned trade The commercial heart of the law sits in the cross-border carve-out. The framework legalizes what gray-market networks did in the shadows: settlement of foreign trade in crypto, outside the dollar-and-euro banking system that Western sanctions target. It hands the practice the Bank of Russia’s stamp. The same function ran through venues such as Garantex, which U.S. law enforcement shut down in March 2025, and through the ruble-pegged A7A5 stablecoin, a token that has moved tens of billions in sanctions-linked flows and that the U.K. has named in a sanctions round. Russia’s crypto pivot Moscow has pitched crypto trade as a route around sanctions for years; the new law builds it into formal infrastructure. The turn is a sharp one. In January 2022, weeks before the invasion of Ukraine, the Bank of Russia proposed an outright ban on crypto transactions and mining, and cast digital assets as a threat to financial stability. That stance held for as long as it took Western governments to cut Russian banks from SWIFT, a move that made trade in dollars and euros a harder task. Four years of infighting followed between a finance ministry that wanted crypto legal and a central bank that wanted it banned. Putin signed an experimental law in August 2024 that permitted mining and international crypto payments; Tuesday’s bill is the permanent frame that replaces the trial. The law’s rules for investors and coins For investors, the law splits the market in two. Non-qualified retail buyers may purchase up to 300,000 rubles of cryptocurrency, near $3,800, through a single licensed intermediary each year, and may send up to 100,000 rubles abroad. Qualified investors face higher ceilings — up to 3 million rubles for purchases and 1 million rubles for foreign transfers. Both groups must pass a risk-awareness test, and qualified status can rest in part on prior crypto experience. Tax treatment is set to track the rules for securities, with rates to firm up as implementing regulations arrive. The tiered design follows earlier steps that opened bitcoin access to retail buyers. The law leans on monitoring rather than disclosure of every wallet. Drafters dropped an earlier plan to require holders to reveal individual wallet addresses; reporting will center on transaction volumes and account balances. Large transfers to foreign or third-party accounts face a 48-hour hold, a window for authorities to review funds before they clear. Assets that clear strict thresholds may trade on organized venues — an average market cap above 5 trillion rubles over two years and average daily volume above 1 trillion rubles — limits expected to confine early trading to bitcoin and ether, with solana a possible third. Privacy coins that hide transaction data stay barred. The main provisions take effect on September 1, 2026, with a transition period for existing operators that runs to March 1, 2027. The passage marks another step in a run of Russian crypto moves, from a bid to make digital assets part of “everyday finance” to a crackdown on unregistered mining that carries the threat of forced labor. This post Russia Passes Landmark Crypto Law, Setting State-Run Rails for Sanctioned Trade first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Galaxy (GLXY) Commits $5 Million to Prepare Bitcoin for the Quantum Threat Galaxy Digital launched a Bitcoin Quantum Readiness Initiative today, a program that commits up to $5 million in developer grants, a research effort, and a new advisory council to harden the network against the arrival of powerful quantum computers. The Nasdaq-listed firm framed the multi-pillar effort as an attempt to close a gap between two worlds moving at different speeds. “There’s a gap between the quantum computing world, which is moving fast, and the Bitcoin development world, which is just beginning to engage with post-quantum cryptography in earnest,” said Alex Thorn, head of firmwide research at Galaxy, whose team has tracked the threat for Wall Street and cast it as a long-term engineering problem rather than a crisis. Bitcoin’s security rests on elliptic curve cryptography, a scheme that a machine running Shor’s algorithm could break by deriving a private key from an exposed public key. An attacker with such a tool could forge a signature and drain a wallet, with nothing on-chain to flag the theft. No such computer exists today, yet the estimated timeline for one keeps compressing, a trend the Bitcoin Policy Institute has warned narrows the window for the network to upgrade. Galaxy’s multi-pillar effort to prepare for quantum The grant program forms the first pillar. Galaxy said it would fund work on quantum-resistant transaction proposals, the integration of post-quantum signature schemes, tooling for wallet and custodian migration, and formal security audits of proposed code. Grants will be judged one at a time and paid on a milestone basis, and the firm expects to open applications without delay through the address quantum@galaxy.com. A research and publishing arm forms the second pillar, with Galaxy Research set to publish analysis of the threat and the developer response for investors, policymakers, and the technical community. The third pillar is a Quantum Advisory Council that will guide the research and weigh grant proposals. Its first members are Barry Sanders, professor and scientific director of Quantum City at the University of Calgary; Damien Bérubé, an MIT Sea Grant Knauss Fellow; and Eran Tromer, a professor of computer science at Boston University. “As leaders in the digital assets space, we believe it’s important that we help be part of the solution to any potential threat quantum computing poses to Bitcoin,” said Mike Novogratz, founder and CEO of Galaxy, a figure known for bold price calls on bitcoin. Sanders said quantum timelines “continue to compress” and that bitcoin should be no exception to the preparation underway across governments and industries. Old and reused addresses face the sharpest risk, since their public keys sit exposed on the ledger. An estimated 1.7 million BTC rest in legacy pay-to-public-key addresses, a stash with keys on permanent display. Defenses under review center on migration to quantum-resistant address types and new signature schemes, an approach embodied in BIP-360, a proposal from developer Hunter Beast that removes public-key exposure from standard transactions. That proposal merged into the Bitcoin Improvement Proposal repository this year, and BTQ Technologies deployed a working implementation on a quantum testnet. Bitcoin’s decentralized governance turns such changes into a slow process of design, review, testing, and deployment that can span years. Some observers cast that structure as the true obstacle, a governance challenge as much as a cryptographic one, and the pool of developers on the problem stays small next to its scale. Quantum tech is surging The launch lands in an active warning cycle. Galaxy Research has held that the risk is real yet the countermeasures are advancing, and President Trump signed executive orders that advance U.S. quantum work and set a 2031 federal deadline for post-quantum defense. NIST finalized its first post-quantum standards in 2024. Galaxy said it welcomes co-funders and other stakeholders, and acknowledged that peers may pledge their own funds toward the same goal. The firm cast that prospect as a benefit rather than a rivalry, with an open invitation to institutions and developers who want to join. This post Galaxy (GLXY) Commits $5 Million to Prepare Bitcoin for the Quantum Threat first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Jack Mallers Steps Down as CEO of Bitcoin Treasury Twenty One Capital Bitcoin treasury Twenty One Capital has named Raphael Zagury as its chief executive officer, a leadership change that arrives seven months after the firm listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Zagury succeeds founder Jack Mallers, who is stepping down to focus on his Bitcoin payments company, Strike. Speaking on the transition, Mallers said, “I’m grateful to everyone at XXI and everyone who believed in what we built,” said Jack Mallers. “Serving Bitcoiners has always been the mission, and that doesn’t change. Strike is where I carry it forward.” Austin, Texas-based Twenty One, which trades under the ticker “XXI” on the NYSE, said it would focus on becoming an institutional-grade operating company that’s judged on cash flow generation and capital allocation discipline, not just its Bitcoin holdings. It added that it would build and acquire high-quality operating businesses that “leverage Twenty One’s balance sheet while maintaining disciplined capital allocation at the parent company and create a long-term ownership model inspired by Berkshire Hathaway.” “My job is to build the operating company around [Twenty One], with the discipline, governance, and executional rigor of an institution,” Zagury said in a statement. “I believe our business will perform best when we also focus on the cash flow we generate and the rigor with which we allocate capital, not only by the Bitcoin we hold.” Mallers leaves XXI The firm, the product of a joint effort by Tether, Bitfinex, Cantor Fitzgerald, and SoftBank, is the second biggest public Bitcoin treasury, according to Bitcointreasuries.net, with a total of 43,514 coins — or $2.8 billion in Bitcoin at today’s prices. It debuted last year through a SPAC merger with Cantor Equity Partners, a blank check company affiliated with financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald. “XXI was built by Bitcoiners, for Bitcoiners. During my role as CEO, we defined a vision for a Bitcoin-native financial enterprise. As I focus my efforts fully at Strike, I look forward to watching the next phase of growth at XXI,” Mallers said. The companies behind it are a mix of traditional finance giants and crypto companies: Tether is the biggest issuer of stablecoins and Bitfinex is a crypto exchange. SoftBank is a Japanese multinational investment holding company and Cantor Fitzgerald is a Wall Street firm previously headed up by U.S. President Donald Trump ally and Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick. Zagury founded and leads the team behind Elektron Energy, a large-scale Bitcoin mining and infrastructure business. Before that, he held roles as a managing director at Deutsche Bank and Merrill Lynch, and as a vice president at Goldman Sachs. He also co-founded OpenCo, at one point among Brazil’s largest fintech lenders. The change at the top comes with a shift in deal strategy. In April, Twenty One had floated a plan to consolidate the firm, Strike, and Elektron Energy into a single Bitcoin-native platform spanning financial services, mining infrastructure, capital markets, and treasury. According to Bloomberg reporting, that deal has been scrapped. Twenty One confirmed that Strike will now remain a standalone business and is out of the running for a merger. This post Jack Mallers Steps Down as CEO of Bitcoin Treasury Twenty One Capital first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo and Micah Zimmerman. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Bitcoin Miner Hut 8 Shares Jump on $9.8 Billion AI Data Center Deal Bitcoin miner Hut 8’s shares rose Monday after the Toronto Stock Exchange- and Nasdaq-listed firm said it had signed a second 15-year lease ​worth $9.8 billion for its AI data center. Hut 8 shares peaked as high as $106 a pop before dropping to around $101. They closed Monday up over 10%. The deal will see the Toronto-based firm’s Beacon Point campus in Texas data center cover 352 ​megawatts of IT capacity. The tenant using the data center’s will have its capacity doubled to 704 MW. Hut 8 added that the campus has a base-term contract value of $19.6 billion over 15 years, rising to as much as $50.2 billion if renewal options are exercised. Asher Genoot, CEO of Hut 8, said: “The real test of our power-first approach is what our partners are willing to commit against it. Our tenant at Beacon Point chose to double its footprint at the site, the strongest validation an asset can receive.” Hut 8 last year signed a deal with American Data Centers Inc., a company backed by President Donald Trump’s sons Eric and Donald Jr., to contribute its Bitcoin mining equipment and help debut their American Bitcoin mining firm. AI pivot Hut 8 is one of a number of top publicly listed miners that have started directing resources to providing the infrastructure for high-powered computing. The company in December secured a Google-backed partnership with Anthropic and Fluidstack to build up to 2.3 gigawatts of AI data center capacity in the U.S. JUST IN: #Bitcoin mining company Hut 8 just announced it partnered with Google for financial backing on a 15-year lease. Bullish pic.twitter.com/NQN9JmW0ob — Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) December 17, 2025 A number of Bitcoin miners have already gone all-in on the industry as minting the biggest digital coin by market cap becomes harder and demand for AI compute surges. As the price Bitcoin has dipped, it has become harder for Bitcoin miners to make ends meet. Nasdaq-listed Bitfarms last year announced that it would wind down mining operations to focus on high-performance computing. Instead of dropping mining operations completely, a number of Bitcoin miners have instead marketed themselves as “compute” or “digital infrastructure” companies while switching between minting digital coins and providing compute for AI — depending on which is more profitable. Top miners Terawulf, IREN, and Cipher Mining all last year signed multi-year HPC contracts with Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Microsoft. Both the crypto mining and HPC industries require huge amounts of energy and data centers — but the move isn’t always easy: AI data centres require more expertise than Bitcoin mining. This post Bitcoin Miner Hut 8 Shares Jump on $9.8 Billion AI Data Center Deal first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Metaplanet’s Bitcoin Japan Announces Plan to Scoop Up Coins Despite Market Downturn Bitcoin Japan, a subsidiary of Asia’s answer to Strategy, Metaplanet, has announced it entered into a financing agreement to start buying the leading cryptocurrency for its treasury. The Tokyo-based, publicly-listed company said Thursday that it had approved a convertible bond deal with EVO Fund to raise 9.66 billion yen ($59.5 million). The deal will see the company spend over 662 million yen — or over $4 million — on its first Bitcoin transaction. Bitcoin Japan works on Bitcoin-related media, data platforms and events to promote the understanding of the leading cryptocurrency in Japan and “contribute to the development of its ecosystem globally,” according to its website. Its parent company, Metaplanet, is a publicly-traded company following in the footsteps of Nasdaq-listed Strategy — formerly MicroStrategy — by buying and holding Bitcoin on its balance sheet. It first started buying the asset in 2024. Metaplanet is one of the biggest Bitcoin treasuries in the world, with 43,000 digital coins worth over $2.8 billion in its coffers. Its stock is currently down over 50% year-to-date. JUST IN: Japan Public company Bitcoin Japan Corporation has raised $60 million through convertible bonds, allocating $4.08 million to make its first buy for their BTC treasury BULLISH pic.twitter.com/gn7hihxJ68 — Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) July 17, 2026 Treasury woes Bitcoin Japan’s announcement comes as treasury companies see their stock slide. Last year, the business model of buying and holding Bitcoin and other digital assets with spare cash suffered with a plunge in crypto prices. Strategy, the biggest and oldest Bitcoin treasury, has seen its Nasdaq-listed stock nosedive by nearly 80% over the past year. Little known publicly traded companies in 2025 rushed to announce they were buying digital assets in a hope to boost their stock prices. The strategy worked but since the market downturn, a number of firms in the space have had to sell a portion of their holdings as the price of Bitcoin has slumped. But companies are still accumulating during the downturn — and firms like Bitcoin Japan are seeing the current market price of the leading asset as an opportunity to start a crypto treasury. Regulatory push While Japan has long been a hub for crypto enthusiasts — former major Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox was based in Tokyo before a 2014 hack and its subsequent closure — lawmakers are now working on regulating the asset class. Japan’s parliament last week passed a law ​amendment to designate ‌cryptocurrency assets as “financial assets,” making the assets subject to ​stricter regulations, eventually paving the way for products like Bitcoin exchange-traded funds to debut in the Asian nation. The regulation is likely to come into effect within a year, Reuters reported, citing NHK news. This post Metaplanet’s Bitcoin Japan Announces Plan to Scoop Up Coins Despite Market Downturn first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Bitcoin-Treasury Capital B Plans 10-for-1 Reverse Stock Split for September Capital B, the Paris-listed bitcoin treasury company once known as The Blockchain Group, will combine every 10 existing shares into one new share beginning September 8, according to a regulatory filing the company published Monday. The consolidation reduces the number of outstanding shares from 300,650,632 to 30,065,063. Each new share will carry a par value of €0.80, up from €0.08 for the existing stock. The company framed the transaction as a “purely technical exchange” that leaves the aggregate value of each shareholder’s holdings unchanged, save for the treatment of fractional entitlements. Capital B said the move aims to “support the company’s institutional development and to open the company’s shares to a broader universe of investors.” Many institutional funds operate under internal rules that bar them from holding stocks below a set price, and some exchanges impose minimum-price thresholds for continued listing. A higher quoted price per share removes one barrier to that participation. Capital B shares trade near €0.48 on Euronext Growth Paris and have declined about 40% since the start of the year, per Google Finance data. Should the company’s market value hold, each consolidated share would open near €4.80. Key dates for Capital B shareholders The reverse split period runs from August 6 through September 7. Shareholders who hold a number of shares divisible by 10 will see their positions converted with no action required. Those holding leftover shares can buy or sell stock before the deadline to reach a round multiple of 10. For investors who do not, financial intermediaries will sell the shares tied to fractional entitlements and distribute the cash proceeds, with payments set to begin September 14. September 7 marks the final trading day for the existing shares. The consolidated shares start trading the following day under a new ISIN, the code exchanges use to identify a security. The company has set September 9 as the record date and September 10 for settlement and delivery. Capital B will also pause conversions of certain convertible bonds and exercises of share warrants from August 17 through September 10. After the split, the company will adjust conversion prices and warrant ratios to reflect the reduced share count, multiplying bond conversion prices by 10 while dividing warrant ratios and unvested free shares by 10. Treasury strategy stays central The share restructuring does not add bitcoin to the balance sheet or raise new capital on its own. It changes the number and nominal value of shares through a technical consolidation, a step the company tied to its goal of reaching a wider investor base. Capital B’s bitcoin holdings Capital B holds 3,139 BTC, a figure that ranks it as the second-largest listed corporate bitcoin holder in Europe, according to BitcoinTreasuries.net. Germany’s Bitcoin Group SE sits ahead of it with 3,605 BTC, the data shows. Capital B, which describes itself as Europe’s first bitcoin treasury company, built much of that position through fundraising rounds during the first half of 2026. In May, it acquired 192 BTC for €13 million after completing three capital raises. The company has moved to widen its access to capital. In June, shareholders approved authority for as much as €5 billion in capital increases and €100 billion in credit instruments, resolutions that drew more than 95% support from votes cast. Those approvals give the board financing capacity for future purchases. Capital B measures progress through bitcoin held per fully diluted share rather than total reserves alone, a framework common among bitcoin treasury companies. The firm has also said it is developing a bitcoin-backed credit product for the European market, though it has not set a launch date. This post Bitcoin-Treasury Capital B Plans 10-for-1 Reverse Stock Split for September first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Coinbase Executive Says Clarity Act Has ‘Tremendous Momentum’ in the Senate Coinbase Vice Chair Ryan VanGrack said the Clarity Act has gained “tremendous momentum” in the Senate, in a CNBC “Squawk Box” appearance that made the case for a federal crypto framework and touched on bitcoin, blockchain, and the industry’s uneasy truce with Wall Street. VanGrack, a former SEC official, framed the Clarity Act as an overdue set of rules rather than a giveaway. “It’s not about no regulation,” he said. “This is about imposing regulation on the industry for the first time.” He described a “win-win-win” for American investors, innovators, and standards should the measure pass, and said a bipartisan group of senators has kept up work “even in the last few weeks and days.” Clarity Act updates The House passed its version of the Clarity Act last year, and attention has shifted to the Senate, where the path to 60 votes remains the central hurdle. The Senate Banking Committee advanced the bill in a 15-9 vote this spring, with two Democrats crossing over, and House members have urged the Senate to act before the August recess. The measure sits in a narrow window as negotiators work out remaining terms. President Trump added his voice last week, posting on Truth Social in support of Senator Lindsey Graham and calling on the Senate to pass the bill. Trump framed the stakes in terms of competition with China, a message he has repeated as he presses the chamber to move. VanGrack said Democrats have won concessions that strengthen the bill’s consumer protections. JUST IN: Coinbase Vice Chair talks CLARITY ACT on CNBC "The Democrats have obtained meaningful concessions to make what was already a strong consumer protection bill, THAT much stronger" pic.twitter.com/y3n04dKdRi — Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) July 20, 2026 He pointed to an illicit-finance framework, an “FTX loophole” that the text would close, insider-trading safeguards, and added disclosures. “Across the board, the Democrats have obtained meaningful concessions to make what was already a strong consumer protection bill that much stronger,” he said. He said the bill would not change how crypto is classified as a commodity or a security in a fundamental sense, and would preserve the registration, examination, and surveillance structure from the House version. Asked how the industry reconciles with skeptics like JPMorgan chief Jamie Dimon, VanGrack pointed to a wave of bank and institutional deals. “Not a week goes by,” he said, where a firm fails to announce a new crypto project or investment. He predicted an “inevitable convergence,” a point at which the market stops separating traditional finance from crypto and treats each as a modern financial institution. That convergence has played out in public, and in conflict. JPMorgan and Coinbase announced a partnership to widen crypto access, and the bank has moved to accept bitcoin as loan collateral and to let clients trade it. Dimon, for his part, has declared war on the Clarity Act and aimed a crude insult at Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, a reminder that the détente carries friction. Is bitcoin real? The interview turned to a sharper question from CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin: whether blockchain is real but bitcoin is not. VanGrack called it “a fair question” and said the technology’s benefits stand on their own — faster settlement, more transparency, and round-the-clock transactions. He argued that no one building a financial system today would recreate the infrastructure of the past century. He cited Citadel Securities, which he said made another large investment in the crypto economy last week, as a sign that major institutions are trending the same course. Sorkin pressed the harder edge of the design: the technology aims to remove the counterparty a customer might call when something goes wrong. VanGrack conceded the point as fair, then countered with the costs of the current system — days to reconcile trades and the counterparty risk that delay creates. “I’m not here to tell you it’s the wrong technology,” he said. He acknowledged open questions, including whether crypto accounts should carry interest or loyalty rewards, a debate that bankers have raised and that the law will settle as “a blunt instrument.” He closed on the case for Clarity Act passage. “In the absence of clarity, you do not have a federal oversight and framework,” he said. “So whether you love crypto or hate crypto, you should want” the Clarity Act. This post Coinbase Executive Says Clarity Act Has ‘Tremendous Momentum’ in the Senate first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Russia Moves to Rein In Crypto Fraud With New Legislation Russia is pushing ahead with regulating the cryptocurrency market, with the State Duma considering a bill on combating fraud in the industry, according to reports. The bill will look at “combating the illegal use of cryptocurrencies within our country,” Anatoly Aksakov, chairman of the State Duma Committee on Financial Markets, reportedly said. Lawmakers will vote on the bill in its second and third readings this week, according to Russia’s Tass news agency, and will also work to provide “an opportunity for those who use cryptocurrencies for international transactions to do so within the legal framework.” Using crypto has been illegal in Russia as a form of payment since 2022 but lawmakers in the country have been open about using them for international settlements. President Vladimir Putin has also previously spoken about mining digital assets, and admitted back in 2022 that the country had “certain competitive advantages” in the sector thanks to its surplus of energy and cold climate. Last year, the president signed a law allowing cryptocurrency mining in the country, allowing legal entities to mine if they have been approved by the digital ministry. Foreign operations are currently banned from doing business in the country. Back in 2023, the Russian legislature passed a bill legalizing the use of digital currency as a way to make international payments. The bill likely has helped the country skirt international sanctions: The U.S. and European governments sanctioned Russia when it annexed Crimea in 2014, and Western nations have stepped up penalties since it invaded Ukraine in 2022. Top Russian banks are planning to launch crypto trading services when new regulations take hold in the country. Lawmakers have said that investors will have to pass a test to start crypto investing and will be limited on the amount they can buy. Pro-Bitcoin Putin? BREAKING: Russian President Putin says "Who can ban #Bitcoin? Nobody." pic.twitter.com/6mJ664BZZ8 — Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) December 4, 2024 Russia has long had a complex history with regulating cryptocurrencies but Putin has previously praised Bitcoin. While speaking at a forum in Moscow in December 2024, the leader of Russia was talking about the dominance of the dollar and other payment methods when he highlighted that new technologies were emerging that could help people move money. “For example, Bitcoin, who can ban it? Nobody,” he said at the time. “And who can prohibit the use of other electronic payment instruments? Nobody, because these are new technologies.” This post Russia Moves to Rein In Crypto Fraud With New Legislation first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine New Onramp Report Makes the Case for Spot Bitcoin Over Paper Claims as Price Sits at Half Its Peak A new research report from bitcoin custody firm Onramp argues that the recent market slump is a reason to buy, and that owners should hold the asset itself rather than a paper claim on its price. The report, titled “Back to Basics” and published in July 2026, opens on a market puzzle: bitcoin trades at about half its late-2025 high, while equities and gold sit at or near records of their own. For a different asset, the report says, that divergence would read as a warning. For a fixed-supply asset with adoption at an early stage, it reads as an opening. Onramp splits its case into three parts — the fundamentals of bitcoin, the gap between owning the asset and owning a wrapper, and the data behind its claim that the moment favors accumulation. Bitcoin’s fixed supply The first section runs through ten ideas. Money, the firm writes, is a technology for storing value across time, a test that cash fails over long horizons. Fiat currencies lose purchasing power by design, since a money supply built to expand hands the first use of new units to governments and the institutions nearest them, while it charges holders of existing balances through a weaker currency. Against that backdrop, the report frames scarcity as the source of monetary integrity, and it casts bitcoin’s 21 million cap as a limit that any participant can verify rather than one that rests on trust. Other points cover bitcoin’s fixed issuance schedule, the halving, and the role of decentralization in making the rules credible. Authority rests with users who run full nodes, the report says, not with miners or firms, a structure that has held through past attempts to change the protocol’s core rules. It defends proof of work as a productive use of energy, with a nod to miners that consume flared gas and surplus renewable output, and it presents bitcoin as gold’s successor — scarce and durable, yet able to move across the world in minutes and to be audited by any holder. On volatility, Onramp treats sharp drawdowns as a feature of an asset in the middle of monetization. Declines of fifty percent or more have occurred several times, the report notes, and each prior drop gave way to a recovery beyond the former peak. The firm favors a mechanical approach over market timing, a nod to dollar cost averaging that some view as a growing strategy and one that analysts have urged during recent dips. ‘Paper Bitcoin’ The report’s sharpest argument sits in its second part, on “paper bitcoin.” A large share of what changes hands under bitcoin’s name, Onramp writes, is not bitcoin but a claim on it — a fund share, an exchange balance, or a structured product that stands as the obligation of a counterparty. Such wrappers can track the price, the firm allows, and many run as described under capable managers. The trouble is structural: each layer adds a custodian, an administrator, or a counterparty that the asset itself does not carry, and any of them can fail for reasons apart from bitcoin. The report ties the point to strain among bitcoin-linked credit products. Direct ownership, by contrast, preserves what the firm calls bitcoin’s bearer quality — control of the keys as ownership in full, with no account to approve and no party able to freeze or reclaim the holding. That framing echoes the case that bitcoin removes counterparty risk from a balance sheet. From there, Onramp makes its commercial pitch. Owners can pursue self-custody, the firm writes, or turn to multi-institution custody, a model that splits keys across independent institutions so that no single party can move the coins and no single failure can lose them. Onramp has raised $12.5 million to scale that platform and has folded cash, bitcoin, and gold into one account. Market timing The third part turns to timing. Onramp lists four observations: a drawdown that is shallow by bitcoin’s own history, a pattern of recoveries after comparable declines, the record of steady accumulation against other assets, and the odd sight of bitcoin at a discount while most markets sit at highs. The present cycle stands about seven months past its peak and near half below it, the report says, an earlier and shallower stage than equivalent points in past cycles. The conclusion returns to the title. Onramp says it is getting back to the basics this summer, and it frames the message without a forecast: buy on a schedule while prices are low, and hold what you accumulate in custody you control, spread across independent institutions. The fundamentals, the firm writes, are unaffected by the fall in price. A lower price on an asset of fixed supply and expanding adoption, it argues, is the thesis working in the buyer’s favor. This post New Onramp Report Makes the Case for Spot Bitcoin Over Paper Claims as Price Sits at Half Its Peak first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Strive (ASST) Adds 21 Bitcoin as Treasury Reaches 19,921 BTC and Cash Climbs to $157 Million Strive, Inc. purchased 21 bitcoin between July 13 and July 17 at an average price of about $63,221 per coin, a buy worth around $1.3 million, according to an 8-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday. The purchase lifted the Dallas-based treasury company’s bitcoin holdings from 19,900 to 19,921 BTC. Strive funded the buy while its balance sheet gained ground: cash and cash equivalents rose $3.3 million to $157.4 million as of July 17, up from $154.1 million a week prior. The modest addition marks a step down from the pace that carried the company past 19,000 BTC across the spring. Strive (Nasdaq: ASST) trades under the Class A ticker alongside its Variable Rate Series A Perpetual Preferred Stock, listed as SATA. Class A shares outstanding climbed to 73,869,961 from 73,426,164, a gain of 443,797 that reflects issuance under the company’s at-the-market program. Class B shares slipped by 3,335 to 9,800,012, and the SATA count held at 7,829,502. The filing detailed Strive’s position in Strategy’s Variable Rate Series A Perpetual Stretch Preferred Stock, known as STRC. Strive held 505,000 STRC shares across both reporting dates, though the fair value of that stake fell $1.1 million to $43.1 million as of July 17. Strive: Buying bitcoin ‘hand over fist’ Chief Executive Matthew Cole signed the report. Cole has cast Strive as a buyer with appetite, a stance he summed up in a pledge to keep buying bitcoin “hand over fist.” The company funds its accumulation through perpetual preferred equity rather than convertible debt, a structure Cole has framed as a guard against forced selling. Strive’s rise traces to a merger. The firm went public through a combination of Strive Asset Management and Asset Entities, then built a bitcoin treasury from the ground up. It expanded that base through the acquisition of Semler Scientific, an all-stock deal that folded a medical-technology firm and its bitcoin into Strive. Shareholders approved the Semler transaction, which closed in January and pushed combined holdings past 12,000 BTC. The average cost of the latest buy, about $63,221 per coin, sits below the levels Strive paid across much of its earlier accumulation. The purchase adds to a treasury built at a blended cost that management has tied to a long-run thesis on the asset. Growth has carried a cost. Strive reported a $393 million loss across its first six months as a public company, a figure tied to the accounting treatment of its bitcoin position and its share issuance. Management has pointed to a larger goal, with an eye on a $4.2 billion war chest to fund further bitcoin buys. The company’s model issues shares into the open market and converts proceeds to bitcoin at a fast clip, a design meant to raise bitcoin exposure per share while it limits dilution. Strive ranks among the top ten public corporate holders of bitcoin, a field that Strategy leads with 843,775 BTC. The filing carried the standard caution on forward-looking statements, with flags on risks tied to the Semler integration, digital-asset volatility, interest rates, and dilution from further share sales. The company said it may adjust the SATA dividend rate, a lever the company holds as it manages its preferred stock. This post Strive (ASST) Adds 21 Bitcoin as Treasury Reaches 19,921 BTC and Cash Climbs to $157 Million first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Strategy (MSTR) Sells $263.5 Million in MSTR Shares, Skips Bitcoin Purchase as USD Reserve Tops $3.2 Billion Strategy sold about $263.5 million worth of MSTR shares last week and made no bitcoin purchases, according to an 8-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday. The bitcoin treasury company reported the sale of 2,732,318 MSTR shares between July 13 and July 19. Proceeds went toward a $225 million boost to the firm’s U.S. dollar reserve, which reached $3.225 billion as of July 19. Strategy bought no bitcoin, sold no bitcoin, and repurchased no shares under its buyback programs across the period. The company’s bitcoin stack holds at 843,775 BTC, a position worth around $54.7 billion at current prices. Strategy acquired the coins for about $63.7 billion, including fees and expenses, at an average price of $75,476 per bitcoin, according to co-founder and executive chairman Michael Saylor. That total represents around 4% of bitcoin’s 21 million supply cap. At present prices, the position carries about $9 billion in paper losses. The dollar reserve has climbed across a run of similar weeks. A prior filing put the balance near $3 billion after a $467 million share sale, and the fresh $225 million addition marks a continued tilt toward cash as management builds a buffer against the firm’s debt load. Strategy’s bitcoin buying pause The pause extends a pattern. Strategy has leaned on dollar accumulation over fresh bitcoin buys across recent weeks, a shift from the aggressive purchases that have reshaped corporate finance and defined much of its history. Saylor posted another Strategy bitcoin acquisition tracker chart to X on Sunday with the caption “What’s next?” Posts of that kind have preceded acquisition announcements the next day, though the firm’s approach has varied across recent weeks. Company leadership frames the sales as a matter of balance-sheet strength rather than retreat. President and CEO Phong Le told Bloomberg TV last week that Strategy intends to remain a long-term bitcoin buyer. Le said the firm would begin weighing risks tied to its debt in the event bitcoin dropped to the $8,000 to $10,000 range, and described the balance sheet as secure. The stance matches Saylor’s repeated pledge that Strategy will keep buying bitcoin for years, a message he has held even through defenses of potential BTC sales. Saylor turned his attention to Bitcoin’s protocol over the weekend. He published a 110-point essay, “110 Reasons BIP 110 Is a Bad Idea,” his most detailed case against the proposed soft fork that seeks to limit arbitrary data on the network. The essay arrived ahead of BIP-110’s mandatory signaling window, which opens in early August. Miner support sits at 0.86% per the proposal’s public monitor. Bitcoin mining pool Foundry has asked miners to vote on the measure, and industry voices have flagged the fork as one on track to fail given weak signaling. Analyst reaction to Strategy’s dollar buildup has been warm. JPMorgan analysts called the larger cash reserves and improving institutional demand in bitcoin futures “encouraging signs” for the bitcoin outlook, even as spot bitcoin ETF flows stay volatile. Strategy sits atop a crowded field. Bitcoin Treasuries data counts 197 public companies with some form of bitcoin acquisition model, a tally that pushed corporate bitcoin holdings to a record high. Tether-backed Twenty One, Metaplanet, MARA, and the Adam Back and Cantor Fitzgerald-backed Bitcoin Standard Treasury Company round out the top five, with 43,514 BTC, 43,000 BTC, 36,303 BTC, and 30,021 BTC. The stock has struggled. MSTR fell 4% across last week and closed Friday at $94.85, a drop of 38.6% year-to-date. Bitcoin gained around 1% over the same stretch, a split that widens the gap between the firm’s treasury value and its market capitalization. Strategy shares were up 2% in pre-market trading. This post Strategy (MSTR) Sells $263.5 Million in MSTR Shares, Skips Bitcoin Purchase as USD Reserve Tops $3.2 Billion first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Bitcoin Sentiment Is Turning Bullish — But It’s Too Early to Celebrate: Report The Bitcoin bottom may be in — but don’t get your hopes up: It might struggle to go up anytime soon, according to one investment firm. A Friday report from European asset management firm CoinShares said that investors last week threw fresh cash at Bitcoin — and other crypto — exchange-traded products, indicating a change in sentiment. But other factors may hold digital asset markets from going higher, James Butterfill, head of research at CoinShares, wrote. “We have said for some time that Bitcoin has probably reached, or is close to, its floor,” the report read. “But we see no significant upside potential from here.” The report added that current macroeconomic headwinds, such as the US bombing Iran and rising oil prices, could see inflation go up again. Bitcoin’s price was up earlier this week, hitting a seven-day high of $65,501 on news that inflation in the US was softer than expected. It has since erased those gains and was recently trading for $64,010. The price of Bitcoin has typically done well on news that inflation is coming down because investors expect interest rates to come down. But Butterfill said that “a rate cut does not look probable at this stage.” Bitcoin’s worst run on record CoinShares’ data showed that investors pulled a total of $8 billion out of funds giving crypto exposure — “the worst run on record.” Last week, though, things reversed when $287 million hit crypto funds, CoinShares said, with the data so far showing that this week looks likely to be another positive streak. The price of Bitcoin has typically done well when US investors — previously excluded from crypto investing — have bought shares in exchange-traded funds approved in 2024. The products — handled by the likes of BlackRock, Fidelity, and Grayscale — allow more traditional investors or Wall Street institutions to buy positions in Bitcoin via shares that trade on stock exchanges. Since BTC’s October all-time high of $126,080, crypto markets have faced a battering as those investors have fast cashed out of the funds. Bitcoin has struggled to make gains, especially after the US and Israel started bombing Iran, leading to a surge in the price of oil. The leading cryptocurrency is now nearly 50% below its record. “The dominant picture is that the current setup is prompting interest in adding positions, but caution prevails while sentiment remains broadly negative,” CoinShares added. This post Bitcoin Sentiment Is Turning Bullish — But It’s Too Early to Celebrate: Report first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Ocean Mining VP Jason Hughes: BIP-110 on Track to Fail as Miner Signaling Stays Below 1% BIP-110 – My Notes to Miners This is a guest post by Jason Hughes, VP of Development and Engineering at Ocean Mining. Opinions expressed are entirely his own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine. The article originally appeared on X.com and has been published with the permission of the author. Let me start off by saying I’m not pro BIP110, and I’m not anti-BIP110. If it actually succeeds as something that gains true consensus within the network and ends up being enforced by a majority of the network… cool. If so, then we’ll go with it because the network has spoken and accepted it, and all nodes, including non-BIP110 nodes, will be pulled along for the ride. Unfortunately for proponents of the proposal, that simply isn’t currently the case by any measurable metric, nor does it appear to have a trajectory suggesting that will change, either. There’s been a lot of misleading information about this whole thing, especially in the context of mining. A few quick key bullet points to briefly counter some hyperbole from proponents: BIP110 is NOT inevitable. It CAN fail. BIP110 can and will cause a chain split/fork in a minority hashrate situation. BIP110 is NOT without risk to miners choosing to adopt it. Miners not supporting BIP110 are not suddenly mining “invalid” blocks just because a proposal that isn’t yet adopted simply exists. You’re not a bad person or evil simply because you don’t like or support BIP110. (The fact that I feel the need to point out that last part is actually kind of sad…) I was going to write a long post to help keep miners informed about things they need to remain aware of as this all plays out… before realizing I already did so months ago, as a document I authored that I had hoped could be put out as a miner education piece at OCEAN. Sadly, it never got published. So I went ahead and updated it, and well, here it is. Again, keep in mind this was written months ago, intended to be as agnostic as possible in an effort to make it acceptable as a corporate post. That effort failed, so I’m posting it as a personal document today instead. As a miner making important decisions about your operations, you need to be aware of all of this without the sugarcoating and, frankly, outright misleading information coming from some of the BIP110 proponents. You must be vigilant and decide what’s right for you. While there is certainly some misleading information from the opposition as well, nothing I’ve seen is nearly as egregious as the extremely premature claims of victory and accompanying hyperbole pushed by the BIP110 side. Summarizing my doc a bit, my personal suggestion to miners is this: Signal if you support BIP110. Do not signal if you don’t support BIP110 or don’t care. Either way, monitor the network on/around/before block 961632. If you continue to see non-signaling blocks from major pools, you can be reasonably certain they’re not going to suddenly decide later to throw away millions of dollars’ worth of revenue to backtrack and signal for BIP110. If they do, by some chance, start to signal for BIP110, you should monitor that and consider switching as required to stay on the heaviest chain. The key point is that, realistically, only one side can win. It’s either BIP110 succeeds, and miners not on the BIP110 side fail, or BIP110 fails, and miners on the non-BIP110 side succeed. Moving on, let’s dive into a small fraction of my rationale. QUICK FACT: Between 7 and 15% of Bitcoin Nodes are signaling support for BIP110. Depending on which centralized crawler you look at… no way to know for sure [how many BIP110 nodes are signaling support]. My personal private crawler puts this number much lower, but that’s a discussion for another day. Suffice it to say, I think it’s logical and correct to say that even 15% is not a majority. “But Jason! UASF got Segwit activated with fewer nodes!” Yep, because many miners, merchants, users, etc., all actually wanted Segwit. There was tremendous economic and community weight behind it. Without rehashing that whole thing, as plenty of resources on the topic from before BIP110 are worth a read, suffice it to say that BIP110 and Segwit activations are not quite comparable, as many have already pointed out. Segwit, for example, went into its UASF territory with around 1/3rd of the network’s hashrate already signaling support. With that kind of backing, the UASF to help push the MASF over the tipping point made a lot of sense. It doesn’t make sense here for BIP110. QUICK FACT: 0.6% of blocks over the past 60 days have signaled support for BIP110. [0.6% is a] pretty stark contrast to even Segwit’s low baseline support. Yes, I know it’s increased slightly in the past couple of weeks, but no new entrants. Just more clearly rented hashrate from one of the same small proponents. Something to keep in mind is that mining BIP110 signaling blocks via DATUM on OCEAN carries virtually no risk to the miner up until the fork point at block 961632. The cost is negligible, as you’re effectively guaranteed to recoup rental costs, etc. It’s awesome that the ability to do so exists, and I wouldn’t have it any other way… but just something to keep in mind when weighing signaling from such blocks in the grand scheme of things from a risk-reward, money-on-the-table perspective. “But Jason! Miners have no incentive to signal until the last minute!” I also see no evidence to suggest that this could be the case. Subjectively, I disagree with the premise, as it’s not in a mining pool’s best interest to destabilize the network in such a way. Part of the reason for early signaling and lock-in periods is to help coordinate upgrades in a smooth fashion. Waiting until the last minute negates that benefit entirely. I see no compelling rationale or upside to doing so. Continuing on this, as part of my personal node monitoring setup, I specifically monitor nodes known to belong to various entities, such as other mining pools, exchanges, large lightning nodes, merchants, etc. A supermajority of which are monitored with explicit permission and confirmation/coordination. QUICK FACT: All major mining pools I monitor are currently running some variant of Bitcoin Core v30 or v31 (except OCEAN). Expanding on that, most [mining pools] have updated their nodes since the proliferation of BIP110’s release, even since the release of Knots 29.3. Additionally, it is known that many mining pools run modified versions of their node software to facilitate various requirements of their specific infrastructure. Such changes would need to be ported to a BIP110-compatible client, tested, evaluated, and deployed ahead of time. I currently see no evidence that this is the case currently. As far as I can tell, the pools are aware but ignoring. “But Jason! Miners don’t determine consensus! Nodes do! Otherwise, they’ll just cancel halvings!” This is one of the funniest and most ridiculous arguments I’ve heard from the pro-BIP110 crowd. Comparing a consensus change that can be unilaterally enforced upon the network by miners and accepted by 100% of existing nodes (a soft fork), with a hard fork which no existing node will accept… is disingenuous at best. T ightening rules (like BIP110): Soft fork, can be enforced by miners if they choose to do so. Loosening rules (like canceling a halving): Hard fork, can not be enforced by miners without effectively 100% buy-in from the entire network… which isn’t likely to happen. Comparing the two is, bluntly, just stupid. “But Jason! If you don’t upgrade to the latest consensus rules, you’re insecure! You’ll lose funds! You’ll mine invalid blocks! You’ll [insert additional hyperbole here]!” This would be true of a consensus change that has, well, consensus. While BIP110 has made a valiant effort to gain that consensus, it has yet to have any measurable majority at what is now arguably the 11th hour. Not in nodes, not in hashrate, not in the social layers (consensus.health has a cool visual there where you’ll find me in the middle). If somehow BIP110 gains 51%+ of the network hashrate on/before block 961632… then, alright. It’s enforced, since as a soft fork a majority of miners can unilaterally enforce it in the absence of a fully adopted URSF (effectively a misnomer, as this would kind of be a hard fork). “But Jason! It can’t gain consensus by already having consensus! You have to give it a chance!” Firstly… no I don’t, even though I have. Second, it’s a rushed proposal that never had the time to even try and gain real consensus. It’s been 7 months since the release of the first BIP110 client. There’s ~3 weeks to go before “mandatory” signaling starts as of now (less by the time you read this). 90% of the time available has passed with no change in overall sentiment from any relevant players. If it hasn’t gained sufficient adoption in the past 7 months, it’s not likely to do so in the next 3 weeks. “But Jason! CSAM! CSAM! Pedophiles! CSAM!” I’ll be the first to say, even I personally overstated the risk here early on when Core proposed its OP_RETURN change. I personally expected something particularly egregious to hit the chain almost immediately, and to the best of my knowledge, that’s not yet happened. Could it still happen? Yeah, I suppose. But considering from a technical perspective, byte-for-byte the same contiguous arbitrary data can provably end up stored in the current chain or the BIP-110 chain without much issue… this particular argument for BIP-110 falls pretty flat to me at this point. Do I want CSAM in the chain? Of course not. Am I a pedophile if I don’t support BIP110? Also not. Concluding Thoughts I could continue to go on and on and on, but I’ll stop here. I’ve wasted enough time on this. I’m sure I’ve done plenty to annoy both sides of the BIP110 debate at this point, as I don’t adopt either stance. I’m sure I’ll catch flak from all angles simply for daring to speak my mind on it. Overall, I mostly think it was silly to approach addressing a real problem (the OP_RETURN default change in Bitcoin Core) with the maximum anti-spam manifesto based soft fork proposal… which provably cannot stop spam, arbitrary data, etc. (Yes, I know, proponents will claim it’s not about spam… and will also make semantic arguments that it does stop data as well… neither of which appears to be correct.) I’ll close with the concession that I could be wrong. I’m not Nostradamus, and I can’t accurately predict the outcome with 100% certainty. I can only go by what the data tells me, and so I give BIP110’s success less than a 5% chance of actually succeeding… and I consider that generous. You can take my opinions on this however you wish, but I highly recommend you don’t discount the actual data points, remain vigilant, and do what’s best for you and your mining revenue. Don’t be gaslit by either side of the debate, and make your own decisions. Here’s a link to the same document linked above for ease of access. This post Ocean Mining VP Jason Hughes: BIP-110 on Track to Fail as Miner Signaling Stays Below 1% first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Jason Hughes. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine SBI Holdings Takes Majority Stake in Singapore’s Coinhako After MAS Approval SBI Holdings has completed the acquisition of a majority stake in Coinhako, a Singapore-based cryptocurrency platform, after securing approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). The Japanese financial group made the purchase through its subsidiary SBI Ventures Asset Pte. Ltd., which injected capital into Coinhako parent Holdbuild Pte. Ltd. and bought shares from existing shareholders. The transaction closed July 16, making Coinhako a consolidated subsidiary. Coinhako operates through Hako Technology Pte. Ltd., holder of a Major Payment Institution license from MAS, and Alpha Hako Ltd., a crypto asset service provider registered with the British Virgin Islands Financial Services Commission. The platform spent a decade building a customer base across Southeast Asia, a region SBI now positions as a base for its digital asset strategy. SBI plans to combine Coinhako’s customer base, operational expertise, and regional network with its own financial services, technology, and global footprint. The company intends to expand a digital asset corridor that starts with Japan and Southeast Asia, and to develop services tied to its JPYSC yen-denominated stablecoin. SBI also flagged opportunities in tokenization, on-chain finance, and cross-border trading. “Our group aims to create a global corridor for digital assets by connecting exchanges around the world, enabling investors worldwide to make optimal investments without being hindered by national borders or currency barriers,” Chairman Yoshitaka Kitao said. He described Singapore as a crucial region because its digital asset regulations are ahead of the curve. Coinhako co-founder and CEO Yusho Liu called the deal a natural step. “For the past 10 years, we have built from the ground up Southeast Asia’s most trusted and legally compliant cryptocurrency platform in the world’s most advanced regulatory environment,” he said, adding that SBI’s backing gives the firm a stronger foundation. SBI Holding’s crypto moves The acquisition caps a run of crypto moves by the conglomerate, which holds more than 14 million users and $308 billion in assets under custody. In the past month, SBI led EDX Markets’ $76 million Series C, backed risk manager Gauntlet, launched JPYSC, and partnered with the Solana Foundation on an on-chain financial market in Japan. In June, the group agreed to buy Tokyo exchange Bitbank for about $289 million, and this week it teamed with Ondo Finance to tokenize Japanese equities. One limit remains: JPYSC does not yet support withdrawals to external wallets, which confines its use to SBI’s own platform. This post SBI Holdings Takes Majority Stake in Singapore’s Coinhako After MAS Approval first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Bitcoin Mining Giant Foundry Asks Miners To Vote on BIP-110 Soft Fork Foundry Digital, the world’s leading Bitcoin mining pool operator, has said it will allow mining clients how the pool should signal on the BIP-110. The Rochester, New York-based firm said Friday in an email to miners that they will be able to vote by using their hashrate — literally computing power — to vote either for or against the proposal. BIP-110, or the Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 110, is a proposal aimed at temporarily restricting spam on the blockchain. If it goes through, a soft fork — a backward-compatible rule change — would take effect, restricting the amount of non-monetary data on the network. “As miners, it’s important for you to have a voice and participate in the governance of the network,” Foundry said in its announcement. “It’s one of the more actively debated proposals in Bitcoin right now, and miners play a direct role in whether it activates,” the company added. Also known as the “reduced data temporary soft fork,” the proposal would cap the amount of arbitrary, non-monetary data that transactions can carry. Its rules limit most new outputs to 34 bytes, restore an 83-byte limit on OP_RETURN outputs, and reject data pushes above 256 bytes. Those for the proposal say that the soft fork would allow Bitcoin to function as pure peer-to-peer money. But opponents, including Strategy founder Michael Saylor and Blockstream co-founder Adam Back, argue it converts a policy dispute into a consensus change that could invalidate fee-paying transactions. Foundry’s process Under Foundry’s process, each vote carries weight based on an account’s average 10-day hashrate on the pool between July 6 and July 15. Foundry said it will signal based on the majority of hashrate-weighted votes across the signaling period, which it expects to run through early August at block 961,632. The company’s starting position is no. It said that until “Yes” votes cross 51% of voting hashrate, Foundry signals “No” with all of its blocks. A crossing of that threshold switches the pool to “Yes” with all of its blocks. Foundry controls about a third of network hashrate, a share that makes its position consequential for the outcome. Analysts at BGeometrics identified decisions by Foundry and Antpool as capable of moving daily signaling into a meaningful range. A mandatory signaling window near block 961,632, projected for early August, will force the question before the activation timeline closes. Accounts that do not respond count as “No” votes. Foundry said owners can change their choice while the window remains open, and that individual votes stay confidential, though aggregate results may be shared. This post Bitcoin Mining Giant Foundry Asks Miners To Vote on BIP-110 Soft Fork first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo and Micah Zimmerman. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Bitcoin Price Falls Under $63,000 on U.S.-Iran Strikes and Trump’s China Charge, but Onchain Data Points to Buyers Bitcoin price fell below $63,000 on Friday, as a fresh wave of U.S. airstrikes on Iran and a new political dispute between Washington and Beijing pushed investors out of risk assets. Bitcoin price traded near $62,800, an extension of Thursday’s 1.4% slide from $65,000, according to Bitcoin Magazine Pro data. The token slipped under its 50-day simple moving average, a gauge of near-term momentum that many traders watch. The bitcoin price retreat tracked a broad decline across global markets. Japan’s Nikkei 225 dropped 4% and entered a correction, a fall of more than 10% from its June 25 peak, as memory-chip maker Kioxia lost 16.1%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng shed 2%, while the Shanghai Composite fell 3.1% to an 11-month low. Futures tied to the Nasdaq pointed to a decline of 1.6%, an echo of Thursday’s drop on Wall Street, where chip shares from Nvidia, Micron, Broadcom and Qualcomm came under pressure on fears that the AI rally has run past its earnings. Bitcoin price, Iran escalations, and uncertainty in Washington Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency, citing the Hormozgan province governorate, said U.S. airstrikes hit five bridges in the southern province. A separate missile strike damaged the maritime control tower at Iran’s Chabahar port. WTI crude climbed near $79 a barrel, a rise close to 15% across five sessions, a move that revived concern about inflation and the path of interest rates. A second front of uncertainty opened in Washington. President Donald Trump declassified intelligence reports that allege Chinese interference in U.S. elections and claimed Beijing obtained 220 million voter records, a threat he cast as a danger to democracy. China’s embassy denied the allegations. The dispute itself carries little market weight, though traders fear it could strain ties before Trump’s September meeting with Xi Jinping. The Australian dollar, a proxy for China-linked trade, weakened against the greenback. Bitcoin price market dynamics Against that backdrop, some analysts argue the sell-off masks a market whose core drivers have changed little. Nicolai Sondergaard, a research analyst at Nansen, said the bitcoin price tape reflects macro data more than a geopolitical hedge. “The inflation and liquidity channel is doing more work here than the geopolitical hedge narrative,” Sondergaard said. He pointed to the June CPI report released July 14, which showed headline inflation of 3.5% against a 3.8% forecast and a core reading of 2.6% against 2.9%. The dollar index sank to near 100.77, a multi-month low, and the 10-year Treasury yield eased to 4.57%. The softer print reset Fed expectations. Odds of a rate hike at the July 28-29 meeting fell from above 40% to the low teens, according to CME FedWatch data. “The FOMC meeting on July 28 to 29 is the actual binary,” Sondergaard said. “If the CPI data holds and the Fed signals a credible pivot path, the conditions for sustained ETF inflows are back in place.” Onchain flows support his read. Spot bitcoin ETFs drew $510 million across three sessions this month, an end to a $2.73 billion outflow streak, with BlackRock’s IBIT in the lead. Nansen’s data shows large wallets held their ground through the strike. “Net outflows hit -18.3 BTC in the strike hour, then reverted to a post-shock average of +0.67 BTC per hour, meaning buyers returned within the same session,” Sondergaard said. Sondergaard framed positioning as constructive rather than fragile. Funding rates sat near zero, a sign that leveraged longs are not crowded, and smart-money long/short ratios ran at 1.58 with no rotation into stablecoins. Retail traders held a ratio of 1.79, a step ahead of the pros but in the same direction. Seven-day inflows concentrated in liquid staking, DeFi lending and decentralized exchanges, a risk-on allocation. Sondergaard said the sequence rhymes with past shocks. “Prior Middle East escalations produced the same pattern: short-duration flush, accumulation resumes,” he said. “MVRV sits at 1.205 with realized price at roughly $53,000 and the long-term holder cost basis around $49,900, which defines the structural floor,” Sondergaard said. “That is not the profile of a market running on geopolitical sentiment.” At the time of writing, the bitcoin price is $62, 836. This post Bitcoin Price Falls Under $63,000 on U.S.-Iran Strikes and Trump’s China Charge, but Onchain Data Points to Buyers first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Crypto.com Secures $400M Investment From Citadel Securities at $20B Valuation Global market maker Citadel Securities has invested $400 million in crypto exchange Crypto.com, giving the platform a $20 billion valuation, according to a Thursday announcement. Crypto.com, which has a number of digital asset products, said the cash would help the Singapore-based company expand its services to assets such as blockchain-based securities and derivatives. The cash will help bridge the gap “between digital asset and traditional markets to create a more efficient 24/7 financial ecosystem,” a Thursday announcement read. “The size of the opportunity in front of us is staggering, as crypto increasingly becomes the rails for finance,” Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek said in a statement. “Having built the right regulatory and tech infrastructure over the last decade, Crypto.com is now perfectly positioned to capture this new wave of growth across all asset classes.” “The convergence of traditional financial markets and digital asset infrastructure is an exciting evolution with the potential to further improve market efficiency,” added Jim Esposito, President of Citadel Securities. Thrilled to announce our first institutional funding round with a $400 million strategic investment from Citadel Securities valuing https://t.co/pFc4Pz8PQj at $20 billion. An incredible milestone 10 years in on our journey and the beginning of a new phase of growth. Grateful to… — Kris (@kris) July 16, 2026 Wall Street’s interest in tokenization Esposito’s comment comes as Wall Street interest in blockchain technology piques — despite a market slump. Back in February, BlackRock, the world’s biggest asset manager, announced that it was working with decentralised exchange Uniswap to bring one of its funds on-chain. Before that, in January, the New York Stock Exchange said it was building a platform allowing traders to buy and sell tokenised versions of US-listed equities and exchange-traded funds. And most recently, the S&P 500 gave crypto platform Trade[XYZ] the green light to debut a new derivative contract on decentralized exchange Hyperliquid, allowing traders to gain leveraged exposure to the top index. Citadel’s crypto interest Miami, Florida-based Citadel, has for some time been interested in digital assets: Back in 2023, the company helped debut EDX Markets, a “first-of-its-kind exchange” giving investors “safer, faster and more efficient cryptocurrency trading.” The exchange this year applied for a national trust bank charter with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, marking a step toward deeper integration between digital asset firms and the US banking system. Citadel last year also pumped $200 million into crypto exchange Kraken to help accelerate the company’s strategy of bringing traditional financial products on-chain. This post Crypto.com Secures $400M Investment From Citadel Securities at $20B Valuation first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine T. Rowe Price Debuts New ETF With Bitcoin and Crypto Exposure Asset manager T. Rowe Price on Thursday debuted its first crypto exchange-traded fund, giving investors exposure to Bitcoin and other digital coins. T. Rowe Price, which with $1.89 trillion in assets is one of the largest U.S. asset managers, said that its Active Crypto ETF is the first actively managed multi-token spot ETF on the market. The ETF, which trades on the NYSE Arca under the ticker TKNZ, mainly gives investors exposure to Bitcoin and Ethereum, weighed 40.75% and 18.42%, respectively, but includes other assets like Solana, XRP, Hyperliquid, Dogecoin, and BNB. T. Rowe Price applied to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for the product last October. “Through the launch of the T. Rowe Price Active Crypto ETF, investors can gain access to a thoughtfully curated, professionally managed multi-coin portfolio that helps eliminate the guesswork of building a crypto allocation on their own,” Blue Macellari, who works as head of digital assets at the firm, said in an announcement. The announcement added that the product was the “first of the firm’s lineup” for the digital asset space, hinting that more ETFs could soon follow. Writing on X Thursday, Bloomberg Intelligence’s senior research analyst, James Seyffart, said: “Launching during a bear market and I know for a fact this product was years in the making. Legacy asset managers continue to build in the crypto space despite the pullback in prices.” JUST IN: $1.9 trillion T. Rowe Price launched the first actively managed multi-token spot crypto ETP 40.75% of the fund is in Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/lbguyJr6RO — Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) July 16, 2026 Explosion in crypto and Bitcoin ETFs In January 2024, the SEC approved Bitcoin ETFs by BlackRock, Fidelity, Grayscale and other asset managers after years of denying applications. The funds had the most successful debut in the ETF industry’s history, and now manage billions in dollars in assets. Ethereum funds followed the same year and a number of altcoin products are now on the market for U.S. and European investors. More traditional investors and Wall Street institutions can now buy crypto via shares that trade on traditional stock exchanges. Investors were previously put off by some of the harder aspects of crypto management, such as keeping private keys safe and digital coin storage. The Bitcoin ETFs in particular have helped integrate the asset into traditional finance, making it easier to borrow against or use as collateral. Under President Trump’s crypto-friendly administration, regulators have become more relaxed towards regulating the digital asset space; many SEC lawsuits and investigations targeting crypto firms have been scrapped since the Republican took office. This post T. Rowe Price Debuts New ETF With Bitcoin and Crypto Exposure first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Fed Chair Warsh: No Bailout for Crypto Industry in Crisis Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh told the House Financial Services Committee on July 14 that the central bank will decline to rescue the cryptocurrency industry in a crisis, a message he delivered during his first semiannual monetary policy testimony as chair. The exchange came from Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA), a longtime crypto skeptic, who asked whether the Fed would backstop failing digital-asset firms the way it supported money market funds in 2008. Warsh rejected the premise. “We do not want to be in the bailout business, full stop,” he said. He added, “We want to be in a position where we’re not bailing out anybody, including crypto.” Warsh, who took office May 15 and presided over his first FOMC meeting in June, framed the stance through his own history. As a Fed governor under Chairman Ben Bernanke, he helped design the 2008 rescue effort. “I still have the scars from the 2008 financial crisis,” he said. “That is not something we want to repeat.” He argued that the post-crisis bailouts bred moral hazard, and he wants to spare digital assets the same fate. For a market that spent years seeking legitimacy alongside traditional finance, the comments draw a hard line. Warsh, described as the first crypto-native Fed chair, has treated Bitcoin as a gauge rather than a ward of the state. During his nomination hearing he called Bitcoin “not a substitute for the U.S. dollar,” and he has used its price as a thermometer for whether monetary policy sits in the right place. Warsh chimes in on the GENIUS Act rules deadline The warning lands days before a pivotal deadline. Rules to implement the GENIUS Act, the stablecoin law enacted in 2025, are due Saturday, and Warsh confirmed the Fed is “racing” to publish its proposals on time. The statute pays stablecoin holders ahead of other creditors when an issuer fails and requires full reserves behind each coin. With the stablecoin market near $310 billion, Sherman pressed the point that a run on one issuer could spread across the sector. Warsh declined to offer an absolute pledge. He told lawmakers the Fed would act to limit “extraordinary” risks over the next four years, language that leaves room for intervention in a systemic event. American Banker noted that he declined to rule out any future step-in. At the Senate Banking Committee the following day, Warsh urged banking regulators to coordinate on GENIUS Act rulemaking to prevent regulatory arbitrage, a race that lets firms hunt for the lightest oversight. He paired that call with a defense of Fed independence on monetary policy and a pledge to shrink a balance sheet that sits near $6.7 trillion. The takeaway for crypto is a market-discipline era: the Fed will set the rules of the road, yet firms that overreach will bear the cost of their own failures. For an industry that courted federal backing, Warsh’s message asks it to stand on its own. This post Fed Chair Warsh: No Bailout for Crypto Industry in Crisis first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Bitcoin VC Veterans Launch $40 Million Holding Company Targeting Small Business Acquisitions Another day, another Bitcoin treasury. But this time, with a twist: Earlier this week, macroeconomist and all-round Bitcoin legend Lyn Alden announced Orange Juice — an investment firm that aims to buy, improve and get businesses on a Bitcoin standard. The idea is that Orange Juice will buy small and mid-sized businesses at low prices, improve their operations, and hold them indefinitely rather than reselling them. A portion of the businesses’ profits will get converted into Bitcoin, which serves as the company’s treasury asset. “Pure-play Bitcoin holding companies exist, but their cash-flowing operations tend to be small or non-existent,” Alden wrote in a blog post. She added: “Orange Juice instead will emphasize building a strong and diversified base of cash flows, with a portion of the retained earnings of its businesses accumulating into a Bitcoin treasury.” Ego Death Capital partners Jeff Booth, Lyn Alden, Nico Lechuga, Andi Pitt founded the company along with Adrian Steckel and Ruben Zweiban, while Mexican billionaire Ricardo Salinas participated as the anchor investor, a Wednesday announcement read. Salinas — one of Mexico’s richest men — has long-praised Bitcoin and last month admitted he had increased his allocation in the asset from 10% to 70% of his portfolio. It added that the company had already raised $40 million and intends to pursue a public listing in the future. “Over the coming decades, a significant wave of business successions will take place,” the announcement said. “Unlike traditional private equity, Orange Juice is not constrained by fund cycles or the pressure to resell, allowing it to focus on the long-term health of its businesses.” JUST IN: Lyn Alden's 'ORANGE JUICE' Raises $40 million to launch a permanent capital holding company backed by a BTC treasury "It’s a company that acquires, improves, and permanently holds cash-flowing businesses, backed by a bitcoin treasury" – Lyn Alden pic.twitter.com/A8kyVpIVVx — Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) July 15, 2026 Bitcoin treasury craze The announcement comes at a time when Bitcoin treasuries have taken a hit: the business model — of buying and holding Bitcoin and other digital assets with spare cash — suffered last year with a plunge in crypto prices. Strategy, the biggest and oldest Bitcoin treasury, has seen its Nasdaq-listed stock nosedive by nearly 80% over the past year. Little known publicly traded companies in 2025 rushed to announce they were buying digital assets in a hope to boost their stock prices. The strategy worked but since the market downturn, a number of firms in the space have had to sell a portion of their holdings. There are currently over 360 digital asset treasuries, according to BitcoinTreasuires.net, made up of private and public entities holding a variety of digital assets. This post Bitcoin VC Veterans Launch $40 Million Holding Company Targeting Small Business Acquisitions first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Breez Partners With Turnkey to Bring Non-Custodial Bitcoin to Backend-Run Apps Breez has partnered with Turnkey to let developers add non-custodial bitcoin to applications that run wallets from their own servers, the companies announced. The partnership addresses a structural problem. Many mainstream apps operate from the backend, with a single service handling millions of users. Adding bitcoin under that design has meant holding user keys on company servers. Holding keys makes a company a custodian, a status that carries licensing requirements, legal liability, and the security burden of a large store of user funds. The alternative has been to build a separate device-based wallet, a change that breaks the architecture these apps use to reach scale. Under the new model, each user receives a wallet whose keys are created and stored inside Turnkey’s secure enclaves. According to the companies, those keys stay out of reach of the app’s servers, Breez, and Turnkey. The company’s backend holds a credential that defines what actions it can take, while authority to move funds rests with the user. In other words, this partnership positions some of the world’s largest consumer apps to add non-custodial bitcoin without rebuilding their backend architecture or taking custody of user funds. Turnkey supports Spark, the network the Breez SDK is built on. Paired with Breez’s server mode, a single backend can manage wallets for millions of users without storing keys. Registered passkeys enable bitcoin self-custody apps The approval flow works as follows. The user holds a credential, such as a passkey registered with Turnkey at signup. The server prepares a transaction and displays the amount, the fee, and the destination. The user approves the transaction, and it completes. The server cannot spend funds without that approval. For the user, the app’s existing flow does not change, and there is no seed phrase to record. Turnkey provides embedded wallet infrastructure used by a range of consumer apps and holds a SOC 2 audit. In a note to Bitcoin Magazine, Breez positioned the release as a way for exchanges, fintechs, and neobanks to offer bitcoin and stablecoin services to large user bases without taking custody of funds. Exchanges can automate payouts under rules their security teams define, and fintechs can add a non-custodial bitcoin service inside their existing interface. The partnership extends a series of Breez SDK features aimed at lowering barriers to bitcoin integration. Passkey Login replaced the seed phrase, Stable Balance addressed price volatility, and a separate feature added support for sending the stablecoins USDT and USDC. The companies say the combined tools let backend-run products offer bitcoin and stablecoins to users while custody of the assets stays with those users. This post Breez Partners With Turnkey to Bring Non-Custodial Bitcoin to Backend-Run Apps first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman. Переглянути повний текст

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