Bitcoin

Bitcoin Magazine White House Now Reviewing Crypto Clarity Act Ethics Text Ahead of August Deadline: Report Time is running out to get a vote on the long-awaited crypto Clarity Act, though bipartisan work is intensifying with the White House reviewing the latest draft behind closed doors, according to reports. Senator Thom Tillis said that bipartisan language drafted and sent to the White House last week is currently being reviewed by the White House. “We’ve got people working with White House right now…they’re going through some of the lines right now,” he was quoted and first reported by Punchbowl News Senior Reporter Brendan Pendersen. Senate Majority Leader John Thune declined to file cloture on the crypto market structure bill Wednesday afternoon, according to Punchbowl News, leaving negotiators only a narrow window to reach something resembling consensus. Thune had told reporters earlier in the day that he still hoped for a vote before the break, and Republican and Democratic staff reportedly held a flurry of meetings over the prior 24 hours trying to close out remaining disagreements. Despite optimism last week from top crypto companies — like Coinbase — and backing from major financial institutions, lawmakers appear to be prioritizing other bills to vote on before their five-week break starting Thursday or Friday. JUST IN: Senator Tillis tells says the White House is now engaging on bipartisan Clarity Act ethics text, Punchbowl News reports. “We’ve got people working with the White House right now…they're going through some of the lines right now” pic.twitter.com/y3vUHDcbr9 — Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) August 5, 2026 Republicans like Senator Cynthia Lummis have said that Democrats are deliberately holding back the bill. Senator Thom Tillis, who has been working with Democrats on ethics language for the bill, said the odds of a vote hinge on whether the Senate stays in Washington past its scheduled Thursday departure. “If we were getting out on schedule, which would be tomorrow afternoon, I think it’d be a moonshot at this point,” Tillis said. “But there’s still a chance if we’re going to be delayed, particularly if we have to go into next week.” Meanwhile, momentum for the bill is building outside the Senate floor. South Carolina Republican Darline Graham posted on X in support of swift passage, framing the Clarity Act as central to President Trump’s push to keep digital-asset innovation in the U.S. She added that the Senate needs to deliver a bill that protects consumers, arms law enforcement, and gives the industry regulatory certainty, adding that she stands ready to back Senate Banking Chairman Tim Scott, Senator Cynthia Lummis, and the president in getting the legislation “across the finish line.” If cloture is filed Thursday, a floor vote could still come as soon as this weekend — though a delay into next week may be the bill’s best remaining shot at passage before recess. This post White House Now Reviewing Crypto Clarity Act Ethics Text Ahead of August Deadline: Report first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Bitcoin Red Team Finds 85 Critical Flaws Across 390 Open Source Repos After Coldcard Exploit Rallied by the recent, catastrophic vulnerability in Coldcard hardware wallets, exploited to the tune of over $100 million, the Bitcoin community has rallied to prevent future critical bugs in the industry’s open source software. PSA: Any users of Coldcard wallets that have not migrated their bitcoin to new seeds generated in secure firmware are still at risk. It may not be too late to act; see advisory on the matter. Led by Calle, software engineer, avid vibe coder and creator of the Android version of Bitchat, and Rob Hamilton, the CEO of Anchorwatch a Bitcoin self-custody insurance company, the Bitcoin Red Team has now secured funding, with over $40,000 spent in AI tokens to audit over 390 Open Source repositories across Bitcoin. Colloquially called the “Bitcoin Red Team”, with memes about Rob Hamilton and Calle now being the CEO and CTO of Bitcoin, this AI-driven security audit is having a serious impact across the industry. Just a few days ago, buried in the news of ongoing thefts of bitcoin from MK3+ Coldcards due to an RNG bug, Boltz exchange announced it would be pausing operations to catch up with AI-driven hacking attempts. “27.5 hours in, we’ve filed 4,962 findings across 390 projects. 85 critical and 635 high severity issues. We’re at 2.31 h+c findings per person per hour,” said Calle in the most recent update on Red Team efforts to shore up the industry’s cybersecurity. The Red Team security review effort is using models like Kimi K3, GPT Sol, Fable, Opus and GLM5.2, some of the most expensive and cutting-edge models in the market. At first, access to OpenAI and Anthropic models was limited, leading to an over-reliance on Chinese open-source models, a fact which many in the industry lamented and saw as a bad omen for U.S. AI dominance. But as the Red Team project grew in influence since last week’s Coldcard hack, connections have been established and confirmed with OpenAI, giving Red Team access to GPT Sol. Hamilton’s mention of Fable in his August 4 tweet suggests access to Anthropic has also been established. Expenses which were last tallied at over $40,000 have been covered by OpenSats, a non profit 501c3 organization dedicated to funding open source Bitcoin development projects. The Bitcoin Red Team does not currently have a website or a GitHub repository to link to, but the team is made up of many individuals within the Bitcoin industry. Individuals publicly thanked for their support include but are not limited to danielabrozzoni, lylepratt, stutxo, benthecarman, thesimplekid. Hamilton shared that a custom harness has been built and is evolving quickly. Made up at one point of 171,599 lines of code, the harness is designed to identify and test critical Bitcoin software libraries and high-load-bearing code, identify and document vulnerabilities, reproduce them and package the proven data into useful reports. Ultimately delivering the information responsibly to engineers in the industry. Hamilton also shared that Red Team intends to open source the harness such that Bitcoin companies can run it against their closed-source code. Red Team is actively reaching out to relevant open source projects with critical vulnerabilities discovered, leading to a broad sense of dread from engineers in the industry when they receive cold direct messages from Hamilton or Calle, as seen in various humorous screenshots shared on social media. https://x.com/callebtc/status/2085035257477190080 Among the key insights shared by Red Team publicly as this AI-driven security update of Bitcoin FOSS takes place, Hamilton shared that engineers with specific subject matter could sometimes yield high-value results from the Harness, which might otherwise “smell out something is wrong,” but might be missing niche context. An insight which speaks to the importance of having human intelligence and experience work hand in hand with the AI to efficiently identify critical vulnerabilities. Hamilton also ended a multi-day Red Team effort after the Coldcard hack with some personal notes. He said that the discovered vulnerability in Coldcard random number generators and consequent exploitation of the bug by hackers had been a “spiritual attack” on Bitcoin and the self-custody ethos of the industry, “I mean that in the literal sense of the words”. After expressing grief for the losses experienced by many Bitcoiners during this now historic hack, Hamilton closed his tweet with a tone of hardened resolution: “While things are not easy right now. I have the highest conviction ever in my life that the idea and technology of Bitcoin is worth fighting for. To that end. There is no Bitcoin without self-custody. This is non-negotiable.” This post Bitcoin Red Team Finds 85 Critical Flaws Across 390 Open Source Repos After Coldcard Exploit first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Juan Galt. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Russia Passes Law to Regulate Crypto Exchanges, Keeps Payment Ban in Place Russian President Vladimir Putin has reportedly signed a law to set in stone the regulation of digital currencies and digital rights in the country — but citizens won’t be using Bitcoin to pay for goods just yet. News agency Tass reported Tuesday that the new law will allow only registered entities to operate as exchanges, and puts limits on the amount of crypto retail investors can use. For now, retail investors are limited to trading most liquid cryptocurrencies, capped at 300,000 rubles ($3,700) per year. Qualified investors have no restrictions, according to the report. But the new law still prohibits digital currencies and digital rights as a means of payment or legal tender within Russia. Using crypto has been illegal in Russia as a form of payment since 2022. According to the report, Russians can use digital currencies to pay for settlements under foreign trade contracts between residents and non-residents or for those involved in crypto mining. Russian regulators, lawmakers and the central bank have been over the past few years trying to set in stone clear rules for digital assets. But Putin is pro-Bitcoin? The news that digital currencies can’t be used as payments may come as a surprise to those who have heard President Putin talk about Bitcoin. Back in 2024, the Russian leader seemed to speak highly of Bitcoin, saying that new technologies were emerging that could help people move money. “For example, Bitcoin, who can ban it? Nobody,” he said. BREAKING: Russian President Putin says "Who can ban #Bitcoin? Nobody." pic.twitter.com/6mJ664BZZ8 — Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) December 4, 2024 The president has also spoken about how the country has “competitive advantages” when it comes to Bitcoin mining due to the abundance of cheap energy in Russia. But Russian lawmakers want to retain a tight grip on citizens’ spending; the use of digital currency has been for years permitted for international payments — most likely as a way to dodge Western sanctions. This post Russia Passes Law to Regulate Crypto Exchanges, Keeps Payment Ban in Place first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine ‘If Clarity Dies, Democrats Killed It’: Lummis Urges Senate to Act on Crypto Bill Before Recess Pro-bitcoin Senator Cynthia Lummis has said that bipartisan work is going into the crypto Clarity Act but warned that some lawmakers are still making unreasonable demands. The Republican, speaking to Fox Business Wednesday, said that she had been working with Democratic lawmakers into the night to get the bill over the line. But she said that some Democrats were still dragging their feet on the bill. Lawmakers are pushing to get a vote on the crypto market structure bill before the Senate goes to recess. JUST IN: Senator Cynthia Lummis says "I believe we will get a vote on the Clarity Act before August recess." "I don't think we'll be leaving on Friday, I think we'll go into the weekend." Pass it! pic.twitter.com/1AZR7DzEln — Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) August 5, 2026 “The president agreed to an ethics provision that no president has ever agreed to,” Lummis said. “He’s gone farther to protect ethics than any president in history — yet the Democrats do want more. Their proposal is in front of the president now, and we’ll see what he does.” She added: “We’re going to vote on it. If it dies, it’s going to be because the Democrats kill it. I’ve bent over backwards for 11 months, to give them as much as we can possibly give them to regulate this industry.” 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. Democrats have criticized President Trump’s family crypto business ventures. The White House has always said there have been no conflicts of interest. A group of Democrats in July said the bill needs work. Major financial institutions like Fidelity and BlackRock, and law enforcement organizations have thrown their weight behind the new bill, If passed, the Clarity Act would create a regulatory framework for the U.S. cryptocurrency market. This post ‘If Clarity Dies, Democrats Killed It’: Lummis Urges Senate to Act on Crypto Bill Before Recess first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Bitcoin Treasury Firm Strategy Pledges $250 a Year to Employee Trump Accounts Bitcoin treasury company Strategy has said it will contribute to Trump Accounts for the children of its U.S. employees, becoming the latest major public company to layer corporate money on top of the federal savings program. The Tysons Corner, Virginia-based company (Nasdaq: MSTR) announced it will deposit $250 annually into a Trump Account for every eligible child under 18 of a U.S. employee, regardless of when the child was born. For children born on or after January 1, 2025, Strategy will also make a one-time $1,000 contribution in the child’s birth year, matching the seed deposit the U.S. Treasury provides to newborns under the program. A strong financial future starts early. Strategy has joined the Invest America Business Pledge and will match the @USTreasury's $1,000 @TrumpAccounts contribution for newborns of U.S. employees, plus contribute $250 annually for each eligible child.https://t.co/erz3oPkikP — Strategy (@Strategy) August 5, 2026 “Trump Accounts and the Invest America initiative can help build a stronger financial future for America’s children,” Phong Le, Strategy’s president and chief executive officer, said in a statement, adding that the accounts can encourage “financial education, long term thinking, and a culture of saving and investing from an early age” — goals he described as closely aligned with Strategy’s values. Trump Accounts, created under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that Trump signed in 2025 and referred to in Treasury guidance as 530A accounts, launched July 4, 2026. Each is a tax-advantaged investment account for a child. On July 4, the government deposited one-time $1,000 seed contributions into accounts for more than 500,000 children. Children born between January 1, 2025, and December 31, 2028, who are U.S. citizens qualify for that federal deposit, and families can contribute up to $5,000 a year. Funds are locked until age 18, when the account converts to a traditional individual retirement account. In a July oval office event marking the launch of the accounts, President Trump said that Bitcoin could one day play a role in the new Trump Accounts savings program. The president campaigned on a ticket to help the space and received major backing from digital asset entrepreneurs. Since taking office, Trump has passed a number of pro-crypto pieces of legislation. This post Bitcoin Treasury Firm Strategy Pledges $250 a Year to Employee Trump Accounts first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

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. This may be unpopular, but we never escaped the 2008 financial crisis. We just shifted the pain. — Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) July 29, 2026 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. Переглянути повний текст

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. The Senate has 4 days to pass the CLARITY Act before recess. Contact your Senator and tell them to pass the bill! pic.twitter.com/3ZHZEmh7UC — Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) August 3, 2026 “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. Переглянути повний текст

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. Переглянути повний текст

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. 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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. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Republicans Continue To Blame Democrats Over Stalled Crypto Clarity Act Republicans continue to criticize Democrats for dragging their feet when it comes to the long-awaited crypto Clarity Act. Speaking to Fox News on Tuesday, Senator Bill Hagerty said that the U.S. could not afford to fall behind the rest of the world with digital asset regulation. Lawmakers have just the next two days to vote on the Clarity Act before the Senate goes to recess. A bipartisan draft of the bill has been circulating among lawmakers but a number of Democrats are being pernickety over wording in the bill, say some Republicans. JUST IN: Senator Bill Hagerty tells Fox Business "We're going to have to pass the Clarity Act." "There's no way that we can allow the U.S. to fall behind in the digital assets arena." pic.twitter.com/mYwfu0JEVU — Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) August 4, 2026 “I think the problem is, will we be able to pass this with Democrats right now, or are they going to let midterm politics get in the way,” Hagerty said. He added: “Everything is moving digital around the world. The Genius Act was a major step forward to make certain that the digital dollar remains dominant in the world, but we need to follow it up with the remainder of the market. We’re going to have to pass the Clarity Act.” Still, Republican majority leader John Thune told reporters on Monday that the bill would likely get at least an initial vote this week — despite lawmakers being inundated with other pieces of legislation. A number of major financial institutions, lawmakers and companies have thrown their weight behind the new bill, which was passed in the house of representatives last year with strong bipartisan support. Still, a number of Democrats have expressed concerns around the wording in the bill, saying in a statement that it needs work. Republicans have alleged that this is just Democrats playing politics, and that the bill has already had a lot of changes. Pro-crypto Senator Cynthia Lummis in particular has said that Democrats are deliberately holding back the bill. Speaking on Fox Business Tuesday, former Republican Senator Pat Toomey mentioned that it was urgent to get the bill passed this week. “I think it’s essential that the Senate pass this legislation this week,” he said. “The technology of the blockchain is very powerful — it has the ability to transform finance and I think other parts of our economy, but there needs to be legal clarity.” The Clarity Act has been in a deadlock for much of 2026, partially the banking lobby raised concerns over stablecoin yield. An updated bill of the Clarity Act was introduced in July addressing ethics concerns. It now bans government officials and their families from issuing or promoting crypto. If passed, the Clarity Act would create a regulatory framework for the cryptocurrency market. This post Republicans Continue To Blame Democrats Over Stalled Crypto Clarity Act first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Nearly $32 Million in ‘Dormant’ Bitcoin Moves After Coldcard Hack Reaches Estimated $130M The whales are on the move. An O.G. Bitcoin address holding 500 coins — worth $31.8 million at today’s prices — shifted its stash on Tuesday after not budging for 12 years. Blockchain data shows that the legacy Bitcoin address moved all the funds in one go, paying just 191 sats, or $0.12, in transaction fees. First flagged by Lookonchain on X, the address piqued Bitcoiners’ interest due to the recent wallet drainage happening with Coldcards, with some speculating that the HODLer moved the funds to a safer place. Hackers last week started taking over $35 million in Bitcoin from wallets after discovering a vulnerability in the Coldcard wallet product software. Now, the amount drained could stand at $130 million, according to Galaxy Research, which said Monday that it was investigating a fourth wave of attacks. Bitcoin that sits still for so many years is often attributed to lost coins — amateur investors often forget the private keys to their digital wallet. But whales — an investor or investors holding over 1,000 Bitcoins — occasionally move funds after many years, leading to big market moves as other investors often expect a big sale. Sometimes whales are just moving their Bitcoin to a hardware wallet or consolidating their coins. Following the Coldcard security issue, Bitcoiners have been urging investors to get their coins to a new security setup. Coinkite, the company behind Coldcard, said on Sunday that all of its models were now vulnerable following more thefts. Engineers have warned that all Bitcoin addresses related to Coldcard could be at risk eventually. This post Nearly $32 Million in ‘Dormant’ Bitcoin Moves After Coldcard Hack Reaches Estimated $130M first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Hyperscale Trims Bitcoin Holdings, Still Sits on $61M Stack After upping its Bitcoin holdings in July, NYSE-listed Hyperscale Data, Inc. on Tuesday announced a sale last week. The company reported holding 958.5352 Bitcoin as of August 2, worth over $61 million at today’s prices. The company’s holdings sit across its subsidiaries Sentinum, Inc. and Ault Capital Group, Inc. Last week, the company sold roughly 150.5 BTC while ACG bought about 15 BTC on the open market, the firm said in a statement. The week before, Hyperscale had reported having over 1,106 Bitcoins worth nearly $70 million at the time. Executive Chairman Milton ‘Todd’ Ault III said the company planned to keep their long-term Bitcoin position while tapping it for short-term flexibility to fund data center operations, with the hope of generating significant cash blow this year and next. “We are confident in our ability to use Bitcoin as pristine collateral to further refine our overall capital allocation strategy,” Milton ‘Todd’ Ault III, Executive Chairman of Hyperscale Data, said. Hyperscale plans to build a $100 million digital asset treasury and achieve full parity between its Bitcoin holdings and its market value. The company is following in the footsteps of Strategy — formerly MicroStrategy — by using spare cash to buy Bitcoin. Strategy in 2020 moved from selling traditional software to buying Bitcoin and allowing investors to get exposure to the asset via its shares which trade on the Nasdaq. Despite aggressive buys this year and last, the company over the past six weeks has halted its buys and even sold Bitcoin, also as a way to generate more cash flow as the price of its stock takes a hit and Bitcoin trades nearly 50% below its October record. This post Hyperscale Trims Bitcoin Holdings, Still Sits on $61M Stack first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine ‘We’ll Get Through This Bear Market,’ Says CEO of Bitcoin Treasury Company Strategy Bitcoin treasury company Strategy’s CEO Phong Le brushed aside concerns investors may have about the Nasdaq-listed company selling its stash. Speaking on CNBC Monday, Le said that Strategy would continue doing what it’s always done, and outperform Bitcoin during the next bull run. Strategy (MSTR) on Monday revealed that it had sold 1,638 Bitcoins for roughly $104.7 million, and bought back 912,143 shares of its preferred stock, STRC, for $81.2 million. The firm’s stock is down nearly 40% year-to-date. It has shed nearly 80% of its value since it closed a record of nearly $474 in November 2024. “I think Bitcoin is going through a bear cycle right now, and some of that is external macroeconomic,” Le said. “We, as a company, went through this in 2022. We actively manage our capital structure, we rotate into Bitcoin, we sell Bitcoin when we need to, and we’ll continue to do so — and we’ll get through this bear market,” he added. Strategy started buying Bitcoin in August 2020 as a way to generate better returns for its shareholders during the COVID-19 pandemic and hedge against inflation. It now has 842,138 coins worth $53.8 billion, making it the biggest corporate holder of the asset. The idea is that investors can buy its shares to gain heightened exposure to the leading cryptocurrency without having to buy and hold digital coins themselves. Strategy was aggressively buying Bitcoin week after week but hasn’t bought any in six weeks. In the company’s quarterly earnings last week, it posted a $8.22 billion loss for the second quarter of 2026. Still, Le said the company’s current paper loss wasn’t important for the time being, and that next year, the company’s stock would soar again. “We’re the J.P. Morgan of the crypto economy, so whether we sell 1,000 Bitcoin out of 840,000 to me is irrelevant to the conversation,” Le said. “The conversation is what is our role in Bitcoin, and are we adding Bitcoin per share overall to our shareholders, and are we creating value? I think that’s an unequivocal yes.” This post ‘We’ll Get Through This Bear Market,’ Says CEO of Bitcoin Treasury Company Strategy first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine American Bitcoin Reports Quarterly Loss But Boosts Bitcoin Stash Publicly traded Bitcoin treasury and mining company American Bitcoin’s stock jumped on Monday following news that the firm’s crypto holdings had increased. The company (NASDAQ: ABTC) reported a second-quarter ‌loss on Monday due to the decline in Bitcoin’s price but still added the largest cryptocurrency to its holdings, boosting its stack from 7,021 to 8,002 coins. Its stock was trading over 5% higher Monday afternoon in New York. American Bitcoin now has a reserve worth over $510.6 million today’s prices, after the company’s “highest quarterly production on record.” It now has the 16th largest Bitcoin treasury, according to Bitcoin Treasuries data. JUST IN: Eric Trump’s ‘American Bitcoin’ increases their Bitcoin holdings by 300 BTC They now hold 8,300 bitcoin! pic.twitter.com/LhaxsSkgad — Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) August 3, 2026 “Our conviction in Bitcoin remains absolute, and our goal is simple: to deliver relentless growth, quarter after quarter, and build the preeminent American Bitcoin powerhouse for the long haul,” Eric Trump, American Bitcoin Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer, said. American Bitcoin’s CEO Mike Ho added: “Despite Bitcoin headwinds in Q2, we stayed focused on what we can control: we delivered our highest quarterly production on record, grew our strategic reserve to over 8,000 Bitcoin, and strengthened the foundation of our business.” “Looking ahead, we are focused on deepening that infrastructure advantage, strengthening our balance sheet position, and compounding Bitcoin per share so that the work we do today translates into durable value for our shareholders across market cycles,” Ho continued. The company, a majority-owned subsidiary of Hut 8 Corp fronted by President Donald Trump’s sons, said that its focus on mining ​pushed quarterly production to a record, with ‌about ⁠932 Bitcoin mined in the second quarter. Net ⁠loss in the second quarter of 2026 was $57.2 million, compared with a profit of $3.4 million ⁠in ​the same period last year. Bitcoin miners have faced headwinds this year — and last — as the price of the largest cryptocurrency has dropped in price but the costs and difficulty to mine the coin have grown. A lot of publicly traded Bitcoin miners have pivoted to the high-powered computing space, providing electricity to the artificial intelligence industry and in turn becoming a more attractive option for a broader swath of tech investors. American Bitcoin is yet to make the pivot, instead focusing on minting the cryptocurrency and holding it on its balance sheet. This post American Bitcoin Reports Quarterly Loss But Boosts Bitcoin Stash first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Crypto Clarity Act Risks More Delay As Recess Looms The long-awaited crypto Clarity Act may be further delayed as August recess fast approaches. Despite optimism last week from top crypto companies — like Coinbase — and backing from top financial institutions, lawmakers appear to be prioritizing other bills to vote on before their five-week break starting Thursday or Friday. Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren was even quoted saying in a Sunday Punchbowl News report that “more people in the Senate are beginning to question crypto’s electoral invincibility.” Pro-crypto Republicans, such as Senator Cynthia Lummis, have blasted Democrats for deliberately holding back the bill after members of the party said that the current bill falls short. Crypto critic Warren has claimed that the bill will allow criminals and cartels to move money and further enrich President Donald Trump — despite the proposed law banning government promotion of crypto. The Clarity Act, which was passed last year by the House of Representatives with support from both parties but has been in a deadlock this year, will set in stone digital asset regulation in the U.S. A new bill draft started circulating in July addressing concerns around ethics. The language would ban government officials and their families from issuing or promoting crypto. The bill has stalled this year as the banking lobby has raised concerns over stablecoin yield, claiming they could lose their deposit base if crypto exchanges pay attractive rewards to customers. Another sticking point some lawmakers have with the crypto industry is President Trump’s business interests: some have alleged conflicts of interest as his family has made money from meme coins and the decentralized finance protocol, World Liberty Financial. Despite slow movements on the bill, top Wall Street firms such as Fidelity and Goldman Sachs, as well as law enforcement organizations, have backed the bill in its current form. And Kristin Smith, president of the Solana Institution and former Blockchain Association CEO, said on X Monday that bipartisan work on the bill was continuing, with Republican Thom Tillis and Democrat Ruben Gallego working together to draft new language on ethics for the act. Coinbase, which has been hashing out the bill with lawmakers, struck an upbeat tone regarding the bill last week, with the company’s Chief Policy Officer, Faryar Shirzad, saying that Democrats and Republicans had worked hard to draft the legislation. This post Crypto Clarity Act Risks More Delay As Recess Looms first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Strategy Sells Bitcoin After Five Weeks Without Buying Bitcoin treasury Strategy on Monday announced that it had again sold a slice of its Bitcoin holdings, offloading 1,638 BTC for roughly $104.7 million. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company said the sale took place between July 27 and August 2, at an average price of $63,957 per coin. Proceeds were split to cover two obligations: $52.4 million went toward dividend payments on Strategy’s preferred stock, and $52.3 million funded buybacks of its Stretch (STRC) preferred shares. It marked the latest in a string of weeks where Strategy has chosen to trim Bitcoin rather than add to it, continuing a pattern that began earlier this summer as the company leaned more heavily on stock sales and cash management to fund its obligations. The same filing disclosed that Strategy sold 3,011,361 shares of its MSTR common stock through its at-the-market program during the period, generating $290.6 million in net proceeds. Of that, $250 million was added to the company’s USD Reserve — a cash cushion set aside to support preferred dividends and debt interest — which now stands at $4 billion. Strategy also repurchased 912,143 shares of STRC for $81.2 million during the week, continuing a buyback program the company kicked off in late June. No shares of its other preferred products — Strife (STRF), Strike (STRK), or Stride (STRD) — were bought back or sold under the ATM program this period. The company still holds 842,138 Bitcoin on its balance sheet, worth roughly $54 billion at Monday’s price of around $64,000 per coin, acquired at an aggregate cost of $63.51 billion. Strategy’s board also kept the dividend rate on STRC steady at 12% annually, declaring $0.50-per-share payments for the periods ending August 31 and September 15. Management has said it does not intend to recommend a lower rate until STRC trades sustainably near its $100 stated value. Despite the sale, Strategy has maintained that its long-term posture toward Bitcoin hasn’t changed. CEO Phong Le has said the company plans to remain a long-term buyer of Bitcoin despite its recent sales. Strategy — formerly MicroStrategy — began buying Bitcoin in August 2020 as a treasury strategy to boost shareholder returns during the pandemic. It has since spent more than $63.5 billion accumulating the asset and remains by far the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin in the world. Its approach spawned a wave of copycat companies that have since adopted similar crypto-treasury strategies of their own. This post Strategy Sells Bitcoin After Five Weeks Without Buying first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Coldcard Bitcoin Theft Continues, Now Estimated Over $114 Million In Total Stolen Hackers continue to drain Coldcard Bitcoin wallets, with the total amount stolen now estimated to be standing at over $114 million. A fourth wave of attacks likely started on Sunday evening, according to Galaxy Research’s Alex Thorn. Posting at around 7:50pm in New York, he revealed then that 388.9 Bitcoins worth over $29 million had been moved in new transactions that were highly likely to be part of the theft. Hackers started by taking over $35 million in Bitcoin from wallets on Thursday. Coinkite, which makes Coldcard, said that a firmware bug in Coldcard Mk3 devices — starting with version 4.0.1 in March 2021 — caused seed generation to fall back to a weak software Pseudorandom Number Generator instead of the hardware true random number generator, allowing hackers to essentially guess investor seedphrases. The theft continued throughout the weekend while Coinkite and other Bitcoiners urged Coldcard users to immediately move their funds. Posting on X on Monday, Trezor’s Josef Tětek wrote that the biggest transaction in the ongoing theft so far was 51 Bitcoins. The biggest drained address (so far) is 51 BTC. Damn. Imagine owning 50+ btc in cold storage and losing it all. Must be absolutely crushing. pic.twitter.com/qu6CiQOjeV — Josef Tětek (@JosefTetek) August 3, 2026 Coinkite has since admitted all of its models were vulnerable following more thefts. Engineers have warned that all Bitcoin addresses related to Coldcard could be at risk eventually. The company said Sunday that it was asking “hard questions about our company.” “The last three days have been some of the hardest in this company’s history, and for a lot of the people reading this, they’ve been something much worse,” Coinkite said. “Money that took years to save, gone. Trust that took years to build, broken. That impact is real, and for some, the damage is permanent.” The company added that it had destroyed its remaining Coldcard inventory manufactured with the vulnerable firmware, and shipments of the product have been halted. Coinkite makes a number of Bitcoin products, including the popular cold storage hardware wallets. Engineers at payments company Block investigated the hack and reported that the hackers used a top blockchain services provider for help in moving the funds, and that they’ve contacted the provider and federal authorities with their findings. This post Coldcard Bitcoin Theft Continues, Now Estimated Over $114 Million In Total Stolen first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Coldcard Bitcoin Thief Likely Used Top Blockchain Services Provider: Report Since over $70 million in Bitcoin was stolen yesterday by an attack that exploited a fault in the Coldcard’s system, it has been reported that the thief used a top blockchain services provider for help. Writing on X Friday, engineer at payments company Block, Clay Garrett, said that the provider — who he did not name at the request of the services provider — had been contacted after finding blockchain movements matched the “suspected workflow” of the attacker. “During our investigation of the Coldcard drain yesterday, we identified an unusual pattern in the sweeps,” Garrett said. “That pattern led us to a hypothesis that has since been confirmed: the operator used a paid account at a well-known blockchain-services provider to query the source addresses and perform other related activity during the sweeps,” Garrett continued, adding that the authorities had been notified. Galaxy Digital’s research arm also wrote on X that the thief had an unusual pattern of moving the coins. “The pattern tells us these were all the same attacker — it does not capture the attack itself, which looks the same as if a coin owner chose to move coins,” the company said, adding that Bitcoiners should move funds out of single-signature Coldcard addresses and into secure custody. After over $35 million in Bitcoin was drained from wallets on Thursday, Coinkite said that a firmware bug in Coldcard Mk3 devices — starting with version 4.0.1 in March 2021 — caused seed generation to fall back to a weak software Pseudorandom Number Generator instead of the hardware true random number generator. This allowed private keys for many single-signature wallets (especially those created without dice rolls or a strong BIP-39 passphrase) predictable enough for attackers to brute-force. Later on Friday, Coinkite admitted all of its models were vulnerable following more thefts. Over $70 million has so far been swiped and engineers have warned that more Bitcoin addresses could be at risk. The company makes a number of Bitcoin products, including cold storage hardware wallets. This post Coldcard Bitcoin Thief Likely Used Top Blockchain Services Provider: Report first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Younger Democrats Understand Clarity Act And Bill Should Pass, Says Coinbase’s Chief Policy Officer The Clarity Act will likely get through despite some — older — Democrats holding it back, according to Coinbase’s Chief Policy Officer, Faryar Shirzad. Speaking on The Hill’s morning Rising show Friday, Shirzad said that crypto was “maybe the most bipartisan issue in Washington.” JUST IN: Coinbase Chief Policy Officer talks CLARITY ACT progress on The Hill: ""We've got ethics nailed down, we've got nominations nailed down, we've got a bipartisan bill on the substance, we should be good to go" pic.twitter.com/gMKuM7ujYs — Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) July 31, 2026 He added that while some lawmakers were holding back the long-awaited legislation, younger Democrats got it. “A lot of the opposition is generational — so it is Democrats who oppose it — but I think younger members who understand the technology, understand that money is transforming how we should engage financially, how we need to adapt, and so it’s really a generational shift,” he said. “I think we’ll be on the winning end of that because right now there are about 67 million Americans who own crypto,” Shirzad added. “We’ve got ethics nailed down, we’ve got nominations nailed down, we’ve got a bipartisan bill on the substance, we should be good to go.” Lawmakers are currently mulling over the latest draft of the Clarity Act, which aims to set in stone digital asset regulation. The latest draft bans officials and their families from issuing or promoting crypto. A new draft started circulating this month, banning officials and their families from issuing or promoting crypto — something opposition lawmakers previously had issue with. But some Democrats are still unhappy with the bill in its current form. A group of Democrats last week said in a statement that the bill in its current form falls short. The bill has been in a deadlock this year, partially because banking chiefs raised concerns over stablecoin yield and ethics concerns. Banking lobbyists have said that if crypto exchanges pay attractive yields to customers, banks could lose their deposit base. Shirzad previously said in an interview that the bill was an “extraordinarily bipartisan” piece of work. If approved, the bill would set in stone crypto regulation in the world’s largest economy. This post Younger Democrats Understand Clarity Act And Bill Should Pass, Says Coinbase’s Chief Policy Officer first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Coinkite Releases Fixed Firmware After Coldcard Bug; AI Likely Involved In The Breach Over a thousand bitcoins are believed to have been stolen so far in a hack that started to be discussed on social media in the afternoon of July 30th. Coinkite, one of the most reputable hardware wallet manufacturers, was revealed to have a critical bug in the way it generated secure private keys for its Bitcoin hardware wallets. Industry experts believe AI was used in the breach. Coldcard MK3 devices with firmware version 4.0.1 (March 2021) through 4.1.9 are the worst affected. 12- or 24-word seeds generated by the device that did not include user-generated dice rolls or a BIP 39 extra passphrase are vulnerable. Users who fit this category, who have bitcoins in an MK3 Coldcard and did not use the dice roll feature for extra entropy or the extra passphrase, should consider themselves at risk and move their coins as soon as possible from the wallets. Bitcoin Magazine technical writer Shinobi has published a guide on the topic, and Coinkite has also published a guide and advisory. The vulnerability was a specific line of code in the firmware, a low-level software codebase that controls the hardware. This firmware appears to be upgradable. The Coinkite advisory was updated this morning, advising users to upgrade device firmware for all three chips, MK3, MK4 and MK5 devices, including the Coldcard Q: “Updated July 31, 2026 at 9:33 a.m. EDT: Fixed firmware is now available. Mk4 and Mk5 users must update to version 5.6.0 or later. Q users must update to version 1.5.0Q or later. For Mk3, update to version 4.2.0 or later.” Coinkite also explained in their advisory that updating the firmware does not mean that the private and public keys generated by the vulnerable firmware before it are now secure; those keys remain vulnerable as they were effectively created with a weak password. After the firmware is updated, a new wallet needs to be created, and the funds need to be sent onchain to the new addresses to secure the funds. Coinkite wrote: “Updating the firmware does not change or repair an existing seed. If your seed was generated before the fixed firmware version for your model, follow the migration guidance below unless the independent dice-entropy exception applies to you.” Some Multisignature Wallets May Be At Risk Peter Todd, Core contributor and cybersecurity engineer, today addressed specific edge cases for multi-signature wallets that use a threshold of Coldcards to secure funds. “Example case: you have a 2-of-3, with 2 Cold Cards, and a 3rd uncompromised device. If you move your funds, the moment your script is revealed for the first time – previously hidden behind the address hash – the attacker now knows enough to use the compromised 2 cold card keys to steal your funds.” The transaction that reveals the multisig script might be unconfirmed, giving hackers enough time to create a competing transaction with a higher fee. Fortunately, such cases have a solution: the MARA mining pool can help in this case with their private mempool mining service, Slipstream; “because they promise to keep your transaction – and thus pubkeys – secret until they’re already in a block. Dramatically reducing the ability of the attacker to steal the funds,” said Todd. He added that “If you’ve already reused addresses, this isn’t relevant, and you should just try to move your funds ASAP. But if you haven’t, MARA may be able to help.” Beyond The Immediate Crisis NVK, one of the co-founders of Coldcard, published a long post on X with an initial analysis beyond the basic security steps needed to secure funds. In it, he wrote that the company is “committed to working with affected users who want to pursue a police report, insurance claim, or their own investigation”, including “a written incident summary specific to your loss and any transaction data we can share”. Beyond the immediate crisis, NVK pointed to a broader tech shift as the hacking capabilities of AI begin to change previous cybersecurity dynamics and expectations. In the blog post he wrote: “To every other developer: we believe this is a sober reality of the new AI paradigm. AI-assisted code review can now find latent bugs at a speed that is outpacing even the industry’s most seasoned experts. If your firmware is open-source or has ever been public, assume it’s already being read by attackers and defenders alike.” The hack and over 70 million dollars in estimated stolen funds in the past 24 hours are an effective bounty paid to hackers who are now likely auditing every wallet codebase available for vulnerabilities. While the Bitcoin and broader crypto industry has generally operated under the assumption that hackers will test their code, the development of AI models optimized for cybersecurity accelerates these processes. Industry experts gathered in a long X Spaces public call last night, discussing the topic for many hours. Beyond the immediate recommendations and answering questions to Bitcoin users throughout the long Spaces, analysis of what is likely to follow in the coming weeks was also discussed. Other wallet providers are likely to get probed, and especially open source projects which generate private key material will be tested. The X Spaces was not recorded, likely to preserve the privacy of everyone in the call; however, initial sentiment suggests companies will need to be auditing their code with the latest frontier models, as a matter of survival. The latest cybersecurity-oriented AI models by Anthropic, OpenAI, Moonshot’s Kimi K3 and others are already available to the public. Many companies in the Bitcoin industry already use these to test the integrity of the code, but some might not be, and the race to find vulnerabilities in wallet-facing code will certainly continue, especially in the following weeks. Ultimately, today we grieve lost coins, and a state of introspection and careful review occurs. Beyond this now historic hack will be an open source self-custody industry and infrastructure that is likely to be orders of magnitude more secure, with very hard lessons learned. After all, every hacker with an AI agent is likely testing defenses now. Multi-vendor, Multi-key Wallets and Covenants Future high sovereignty wallets, be it at the retail or corporate level, are likely to not depend on any single vendor. Multisignature wallets, when well done, can distribute vulnerability risks across different code bases, teams and hardware. User-generated entropy was also a major theme in the X Spaces discussed earlier, with dice roll-generated entropy brought up regularly as a solution. Coldcards, as well as other hardware wallets like Foundation Devices, guide users on how to add their own entropy properly; many dice need to be rolled, ideally north of a hundred individual rolls. Once done, however, dice rolls represent a non-software source of randomness for wallets that also separates users from the edge-case risks in software- or hardware-generated entropy. Covenants a popular soft fork among a certain niche in the Bitcoin industry have also started to be brought up as further step to strengthen the self-custody industry. This upgrade to the Bitcoin consensus which might be hard fought if achieved at all, could give users important smart contract capabilities, such a wallet that can only send to a white list of addresses, something not possible in Bitcoin script today. This post Coinkite Releases Fixed Firmware After Coldcard Bug; AI Likely Involved In The Breach first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Juan Galt. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine US Closes in on Iran’s Strait of Hormuz Bitcoin Insurance Policy, Sanctions Companies Iran has been dodging sanctions by accepting pay in Bitcoin from ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz, according to a Friday announcement from the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. The OFAC sanctioned the companies tied to the Iranian regime accused of doing so. Ships have barely been passing through the strategic Strait of Hormuz, where a fifth of the world’s oil passes through, since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran in February. In the statement, OFAC said that Hormuz Safe, developed by Iran’s Ministry of Economy, “accepts payment in Bitcoin and other digital assets” so it can bypass sanctions. “With its economy in freefall and inflation in the triple digits, the regime is desperate for cash,” Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent said in a statement. “The United States will not allow Iran to hold global commerce hostage or use international shipping to finance the IRGC’s terrorism, aggression, and repression.” The OFAC statement added that two firms — the Persian Gulf Marine Insurance Company (PGMIC) and HormuzSafe Marine Services Authority (“Hormuz Safe”) — accused of running an IRGC-backed scheme forcing commercial vessels to buy mandatory “insurance” to transit the Strait of Hormuz. Bloomberg first reported in May that Iran had started a Bitcoin-backed insurance service for Iranian shipping companies. The U.S. earlier this month announced that it had frozen crypto linked to the Iranian regime, mostly in the form of the Tether stablecoin. Stablecoins like Tether’s USDT can be frozen by the company that issues the asset but Bitcoin, being decentralized and having no single issuer, cannot. Experts have warned that a recession could follow due to the war between the U.S. and Iran due to high oil prices if the Strait of Hormuz remains closed. This post US Closes in on Iran’s Strait of Hormuz Bitcoin Insurance Policy, Sanctions Companies first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine COLDCARD SECURITY RISK: IMMEDIATE ACTION REQUIRED First, yes, that is a very clickbait title and completely unusual. This is a real security issue. Here is the official announcement from Coinkite themselves posted yesterday, please read and verify the genuineness of the issue there. TLDR: Coldcard MK3, MK4, MK5 and Q are being drained. A bug lets attackers find your seed phrase without any action on your part. Only wallets generated using the dice roll method are safe, assuming you rolled at least 50 dice. If you don’t know, don’t remember, or aren’t sure, move your funds immediately. This is a critical issue that requires immediate action. If you used a Coldcard to generate a word seed and did NOT use the recommended 50+ dice rolls to provide your own entropy after the end of 2020, your word seed is not secure. It was generated without a sufficient amount of randomness, and can be brute forced by a malicious attacker. Wallets are actively being drained now. This issue also affects any ephemeral keys and session keys for Clone Coldcard or Key Teleport features, and BIP 85 seeds generated from a compromised seed. YOU MUST STILL MOVE YOUR FUNDS. This attack is being actively exploited, with around 1000 BTC seen moving on-chain connected to the vulnerability. Breath, and relax. You must move your funds to a new word seed, or a word seed generated by a different device, in order to secure your funds. – If you have another hardware wallet that is not a Coldcard, send your funds there. This is the quickest and simplest way to get them someplace secure. – If you do not have another hardware wallet, and only have a Coldcard, generate a passphrase using at MINIMUM six seed words from the BIP 39 word list. Use this guide to select your words for the passphrase, do NOT pick them yourself. Check your wallet fingerprint (or an address), power down your device, restart it and re-enter the passphrase. Confirm that the fingerprint (or address) matches, and send your funds to the passphrase wallet. This is not a permanent solution. This is simply giving you enough security that an attacker will not be able to brute force your keys in a matter of days, and you can generate a new seed without being in a state of panic. Make sure your passphrase is written down securely. – If you have no other options, or are uncomfortable with using the device at all, Nunchuck wallet available on mobile and desktop. Take your time, don’t rush yourself too fast, and make sure that all of your backups are done properly. After you have verified backups, send your funds to this wallet. If you are managing significant sums, Nunchuck has support for multisig. You can create one using multiple devices. Blockstream Green and Bluewallet are two other options for software wallets. Once your funds are secure, take a minute and relax. Coldcards are still safe to use as long as the word seed is generated securely. A firmware patch has been released here. Any word seed generated after this firmware update should be secure (and you can use the dice roll option too). If you have transferred your funds to a hot wallet, or something less secure, your Coldcard is safe to use after applying the firmware update and generating a new seed. Once you have secured your own funds, stop and take stock. Reach out proactively to anyone you know who might be using a Coldcard that was vulnerable when they generated their seed. Inform them of the issue, and if needed (and you are capable) help walk them through migrating their funds. Everyone doesn’t pay attention to Bitcoin news on a regular basis, so many people might be unaware that they are even vulnerable. This post COLDCARD SECURITY RISK: IMMEDIATE ACTION REQUIRED first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Shinobi. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Coldcard Wallet Flaw Exposes Years of Bitcoin Seeds After $70M in BTC Stolen The popular Bitcoin hardware wallet Coldcard product, made by Coinkite, is at risk following a $70 million hack. Coinkite on Thursday admitted that its Coldcard Mk3 model was affected following the hack and advised users to move their funds. Then, on Friday, the company said that users of the later hardware devices Mk4, Mk5, and Q should also take precautions. Hackers on Thursday were first able to drain funds from 1,196 Bitcoin addresses because their private keys were not generated using sufficient entropy — or randomness. Since then, a total of 1,082.65 Bitcoins have disappeared from wallets, according to data from Galaxy Research and engineers at payments company Block. While Coinkite has not admitted that the hack is linked to their wallets, the company has said that a wallet seed generation bug in Coldcard products meant the hardware’s true random number generator wasn’t actually being used on certain firmware versions. Coinkite and other engineers in the Bitcoin space are still investigating reportedly ongoing drains still happening at the time of writing. What actually happened A firmware bug in Coldcard Mk3 devices (starting with version 4.0.1 in March 2021) caused seed generation to fall back to a weak software PRNG instead of the hardware true random number generator, producing seeds with only ~40 bits of entropy rather than the intended 128. This made private keys for many single-signature wallets (especially those created without dice rolls or a strong BIP-39 passphrase) predictable enough for attackers to brute-force. A total of 594.5 Bitcoins worth over $35.7 million at today’s prices were moved to a new address from single-signature addresses on Thursday. NEW: Over 594 BTC worth $38 million was stolen from Bitcoin hardware wallet Coldcard users. The attacker then moved around the BTC and consolidated 562 BTC into this address below. Users are urged to review the company's official security guidance as soon as possible. pic.twitter.com/exD2Wax7CY — Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) July 31, 2026 More wallets were later drained, according to blockchain analysts, with the total now over $70 million. Various affected users shared their experiences on social media, with one saying that their Bitcoin had not been moved since 2021, and all of a sudden was swiped. Bitcoin engineers have since said that Coldcard products — specifically the Mk3 models — had “faulty entropy in wallet generation,” meaning they did not use real randomness to create a seedphrase. What to do Developers in the Bitcoin space have since urged users to move their funds if they used a Coldcard. Coldcard has issued guidance for users to take, which can be found here. The first post was the advisory and what users should do. This second post has the technical details: what actually went wrong, why our reviews missed it, the impact across Mk3/Mk4/Q/Mk5, and what we changed.https://t.co/HshUxevCl3 ( current evaluating Mk3 firmware release ) https://t.co/Yfdx4XcztA — COLDCARD (@COLDCARDwallet) July 31, 2026 Coinkite first said that their Mk3 models were affected but then on Friday said that those who did not use sufficient entropy to create a seed — in this case, 50 dice rolls — should generate a brand-new seed on the updated device. Others have warned to ditch Coldcard completely to be sure their funds are safe. “Everything is fucked,” wrote Kevin Loaec, CEO of Bitcoin security company, Wizardsardine. “Every single mnemonic generated [via a Coldcard] since 2021 will be public in the next few days,” Loaec warns. This post Coldcard Wallet Flaw Exposes Years of Bitcoin Seeds After $70M in BTC Stolen first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine ‘Bitcoin Senator’ Cynthia Lummis Blasts Democrats For Stalling Crypto Clarity Act Republican Senator Cynthia Lummis has again attacked the Democrats for holding back the long-awaited crypto Clarity Act. Speaking on the Crypto in America podcast Thursday, Lummis said that the bill could have been passed months ago but is unfairly being held back. Lawmakers are hoping the Clarity Act gets passed before Congress departs for August recess. While the bill has been drafted bipartisanly, some Democrats are unhappy with the current version. JUST IN: Sen. Cynthia Lummis says a Senate vote is still on track before the August recess "Sen. Thune has kept a place for the CLARITY ACT on the agenda before the August recess…and I believe he does intend to go through with it…We will be moving forward." pic.twitter.com/FxVlbtgbNr — Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) July 30, 2026 “The biggest obstacle is that the Democrats, in spite of having 11 months to work on this bill intensely, which we have done, still won’t commit to voting for it, and that that is the bigger challenge,” Lummis said. “When we started working with [the Democrats] last Labor Day, the Clarity Act was about 300 pages — it’s getting closer to 700 pages. Most of those new pages were added at the requests of Democrats.” She added: “This messing around, this pussyfooting around with, I want to change this, no, I want to change it back, I like the House version, no, let’s go with the Senate version, and then bringing last minute changes to this bill that could have been brought weeks ago — in fact, months ago — is absurd, and I’m just tired of being played.” Major financial institutions, lawmakers and companies have thrown their weight behind the new bill, but a group of Democrats last week said in a statement that the bill in its current form falls short. Still, Lummis added that while lawmakers had a lot to vote on before the August recess, there was still a chance the bill could fit into a slot. Despite being passed in the house of representatives last year with strong bipartisan support, the Clarity Act has been in a deadlock for much of 2026, partially the banking lobby raised concerns over stablecoin yield. An updated bill of the Clarity Act was introduced last week that addressed ethics concerns — banning government officials and their families from issuing or promoting crypto. Republicans are hoping to gain bipartisan support for the bill this week to advance the legislation. If passed, the long-awaited bill would create a regulatory framework for the cryptocurrency market. Trump ally Lummis is one of the most pro-crypto senators on Capitol Hill, even earning the name “Bitcoin Senator.” The Republican helped draft the Bitcoin Act for a Bitcoin strategic reserve, and co-sponsored the 2025’s GENIUS Act to regulate stablecoins. This post ‘Bitcoin Senator’ Cynthia Lummis Blasts Democrats For Stalling Crypto Clarity Act first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст