Bitcoin

Bitcoin Magazine Morgan Stanley Bitcoin ETF Nearly Notches $400M in Assets Wall Street giant Morgan Stanley Bitcoin exchange-traded fund now has close to $400 million in assets under management — despite only launching in April. The NYSE Arca-listed fund, which is the first by a bank, got off to a roaring start when it debuted, bringing in over $33 million in fresh cash on its first day. Now, the fund has over $391 million in assets, demonstrating the popularity of the product. Many ETFs never reach $400 million in assets at all, let alone in one quarter. Senior Bloomberg Intelligence ETF analyst Eric Balchunas revealed Friday that the product has been one of the most successful funds launched this year so far. This week alone, investors have thrown $15.7 million in new cash at the product, according to Farside Investors data. Morgan Stanley has been making big crypto moves for years now. Back in 2021, it started offering wealthy clients exposure to Bitcoin via funds such as those by Galaxy Digital. And last year, the bank’s CEO and Chairman, Ted Pick, said that the bank was working with regulators to see how they could offer crypto safely. Back in April, the bank’s head of digital assets, Amy Oldenburg said client education — not product design — is the central challenge facing Bitcoin adoption. ETF action this week After weeks of outflows and sloppy price action, American Bitcoin ETFs have taken in fresh cash over the past seven days. Farside Investors shows the products have received a total of $274 million in new investment so far this week. The funds had been on a winning streak, receiving nearly $1 billion over seven days until Thursday, when every ETF experienced outflows — except for Morgan Stanley’s product. Bitcoin’s price was recently trading for $64,096, down over 1% over the past 24 hours. The cryptocurrency is virtually unmoved over a seven-day period. European asset management firm CoinShares last week said that while investors are back at putting fresh cash in Bitcoin ETFs, other factors may hold digital asset markets from going higher. “We see no significant upside potential from here,” James Butterfill, head of research at CoinShares, wrote. This post Morgan Stanley Bitcoin ETF Nearly Notches $400M in Assets first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine $7 Trillion Investment Giant Fidelity Backs New Crypto Clarity Act Investment giant Fidelity is the latest big player to back the latest version of the long-awaited Clarity Act. The Boston-based firm’s “Public Policy” account on X said Friday that it was urging the Senate to pass the bill. BREAKING: $7.1 trillion Fidelity officially endorses the Senate to pass the Clarity Act. pic.twitter.com/X8xncZtPzA — Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) July 24, 2026 Lawmakers have been hashing out the crypto market structure bill since last year. A new improved draft circulating the Senate this week bans officials and their families from issuing or promoting crypto — a sticking point for opposition politicians. “The time is now for clear rules of the road that are essential to strengthening investor confidence, providing certainty for market participants, and reinforcing U.S. leadership in global digital asset markets,” the company said. Fidelity — which manages around $7 trillion in assets — was joined Friday by crypto advocacy groups the Crypto Council for Innovation, Blockchain Association, and the Digital Chamber, as well as the National Fraternal Order of Police and other politicians in backing the bill. Top asset manager Fidelity is interested in the bill as the firm manages Bitcoin and other digital asset exchange-traded funds: products which give American investors exposure to crypto via shares that trade on stock exchanges. The SEC approved a number of spot BTC ETFs in 2024, which have since gone on to be some of the most successful ETF launches ever. Clarity stalls Republicans passed the Clarity Act last year but the bill has been in deadlock — mainly because banking chiefs raised concerns over stablecoins and the yield they would potentially pay customers. Coinbase pulled support for the bill in January after clashing with banking bigwigs who said that earning yield on stablecoins should be banned. U.S. banks argue that they could lose customers if crypto exchanges like Coinbase offer more attractive products for their deposit base. Some lawmakers — like Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren — have argued that President Donald Trump’s family has unfairly benefited from crypto ventures. Warren this week argued that the Clarity Act could further be used for Trump to cash in on crypto but the latest draft bans officials and their families from issuing or promoting crypto. This post $7 Trillion Investment Giant Fidelity Backs New Crypto Clarity Act first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine State Department to Debut Freedom Tech Program with Bitcoin Policy Institute, Palantir as Founding Partners The U.S. State Department is launching a program that includes Bitcoin as a way to advance digital freedom worldwide. Named the Freedom Tech Excellence Program, the initiative will see the State Department work with the Bitcoin Policy Institute, data-analytics firm Palantir Technologies, defense technology company Anduril Industries, and the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation on issues including online surveillance, encryption, AI governance, and protecting free expression online. According to the program’s stated goals, participants will focus on five priority areas: First Amendment and free expression protections in the digital age; countering unlawful digital surveillance and online scams; privacy-enhancing technologies such as strong encryption and VPNs; responsible governance of emerging technologies including AI; and safeguarding children and other users online. The inclusion of the Bitcoin Policy Institute signals that the Department views Bitcoin and blockchain technology as tools relevant to circumventing censorship and financial surveillance in authoritarian states — a theme the organization has long championed in its advocacy work. The FTEP will operate through limited-term assignments, placing private sector personnel inside the State Department on temporary embeds tasked with shaping diplomatic efforts around specific digital freedom issues. President Trump campaigned on a ticket to help the crypto space and since taking office, his government has taken a more pro-crypto approach to both regulating and including elements of the space in his administration. In March 2025, for example, President Trump signed an executive order establishing a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and a separate U.S. Digital Asset Stockpile, capitalized with roughly 200,000 Bitcoin already held by the government through criminal and civil forfeiture. The order framed Bitcoin alongside strategic reserves the U.S. maintains for materials like gold, petroleum, and pharmaceuticals, treating it as a scarce national asset rather than merely a speculative one. This post State Department to Debut Freedom Tech Program with Bitcoin Policy Institute, Palantir as Founding Partners first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine National Fraternal Order of Police Gives Green Light to Clarity Act in Latest Support for Crypto Bill The National Fraternal Order of Police became the latest organization to throw its support behind the long-awaited Clarity Act. In a statement Friday, specifically addressed to Democratic senators Elizabeth Warren and Timothy Eugene Scott, the fraternal organization wrote that it approved of the latest bill. The FOP works to improve the working conditions of law enforcement officers. The newest draft bans officials and their families from issuing or promoting crypto, something opposition lawmakers previously had issue with. On Wednesday, Senator Warren, a long-time crypto critic, said that the latest bill would allow President Donald Trump to make money from crypto, as well as benefit criminals. JUST IN: The world's largest organization of sworn law enforcement officers now officially endorses the passage of the Clarity Act: pic.twitter.com/N10g5jIZ0M — Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) July 24, 2026 “The latest version of the ‘Clarity Act’ includes several provisions that improve the ability of State and local law enforcement to protect consumers, investigate financial crimes, and coordinate with their Federal partners,” the letter read. “The revised bill establishes safeguards aimed at addressing fraud and victimization involving digital asset kiosks and related activity while also providing for anti-money laundering and sanctions compliance obligations across the digital asset ecosystem.” U.S. lawmakers are currently mulling over the latest draft of the Clarity Act — a crypto market structure bill aims to set in stone digital asset regulation. More support for the bill Top crypto advocacy groups the Crypto Council for Innovation, Blockchain Association, and the Digital Chamber also threw their support behind the latest draft of the Clarity Act on Friday. The trade associations said that passing the bill is necessary to establish the “first comprehensive federal consumer protection framework for digital asset markets” as more Americans begin to use and invest in crypto. The Clarity Act, which Republicans passed last year, has been in a deadlock mainly because banking chiefs raised concerns over stablecoins and the yield they would potentially pay customers. America’s biggest crypto exchange, Coinbase, pulled support for the bill in January after clashing with banking chiefs who said that earning yield on stablecoins should be banned. U.S. banks have said they could lose customers if crypto exchanges offer more attractive products for their deposit base. A new bill has been circulating this week and it is expected it will head to floor vote. The latest draft bans officials and their families from issuing or promoting crypto — a sore point for Democratic politicians who have argued that President Donald Trump’s family has unfairly benefited from crypto ventures. President Trump campaigned on a ticket to help the crypto space but his digital asset ventures have raised eyebrows among Washington lawmakers who think the Trump family has unfairly profited from crypto businesses. This post National Fraternal Order of Police Gives Green Light to Clarity Act in Latest Support for Crypto Bill first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Sealed in Foil: BMAG’s New Focus on Trading Cards Somewhere right now, on a livestream, someone is tearing open a foil package while hundreds of people watch. Trading cards have become a spectator sport. The card market is at all-time highs, cardboard repriced by the hour, rare cards selling for eight figures, and a general sense of frenzy. But watch enough of it and something strange becomes clear. Nobody is looking at the cards. The audience isn’t consuming images, it’s consuming anticipation. The card boom has also surfaced hard questions, and the hardest ones surround grading. The past year saw the hobby’s dominant grading house facing scrutiny over grades that shifted after cards moved through its own buyback program, and collectors began asking, who grades the grader. When a single subjective number separates a card from ten times its value, and the arbiter of that number also holds a position in the asset, the hobby has a verification problem. These are, in the language of bitcoiners, trusted-third-party problems. The two worlds keep arriving at the same three questions: what’s real, what’s rare, and what holds value. A graded slab and a confirmed transaction on the timechain are answers to the same anxiety. Collectors demanding transparent grading and provenance that can’t be quietly revised are asking for verification over trust, whether they use those words or not. In that sense, card collectors and bitcoiners already share the same ideals. This is why BMAG (Bitcoin Museum and Art Gallery) is making trading cards a serious part of its program. Seven years as the cultural wing of the Bitcoin Conference, more than 130 BTC ($8+ million) in art and collectibles sales, the first Magic: The Gathering tournament at a Bitcoin Conference, staged in Las Vegas with Kraken and on-site TAG grading, and the conviction that cards are asking the same questions bitcoin already answered. Source: https://my.taggrading.com/card/P7612780 The fullest expression of that focus arrives this August. At Bitcoin Asia 2026, August 27-28 at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, BMAG will debut a full Trading Card Expo on the conference floor. The Expo is anchored by a marketplace of established vendors from across Hong Kong and Southeast Asia, alongside live activations, grading and authentication, card auctions, and a curated gallery presentation surrounding it all. Cards and collectibles will be available for purchase, and attendees are encouraged to bring their own cards for grading or resale to the 40+ card vendors. Hong Kong is one of the most active card markets in the world and a Bitcoin conference is the natural room for it. But a marketplace alone isn’t the point. The trading card has an art pedigree longer than most people realize. Jefferson Burdick, the father of American card collecting, spent his final years transferring thousands of cards into albums at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where his collection remains today. Art Spiegelman worked at Topps inventing series like Garbage Pail Kids before his mainstream graphic novel successes. And the critic Brian Droitcour recently put his finger on why the format matters right now: a Magic card is an image that does something, rarity and function entwined, while NFTs inherited that logic and captured only the rarity. Droitcour argues that NFTs dissolved the old hierarchy between the artwork and the collectible, and that the most interesting artists working today make objects that are both at once. A generation of artists has taken that invitation literally. Over the past few years, a loose scene of mostly pseudonymous artists, formed across crypto subcultures, Twitter timelines, and private group chats, has been quietly staging one of the more genuine artistic rebellions of the decade. Where the establishment crypto-art world courted galleries with polished generative work, these artists went the other direction, making images dense with meme references, anime, veiled art history, and internet debris, layered so deep that critics had to invent new words for them. They call the style schizocollage. In Spike Art Magazine, Dean Kissick placed the work in the lineage of deliberately “bad painting,” a tradition Marcia Tucker gave institutional credentials when she inaugurated the New Museum with an exhibition of that name in 1978. And increasingly, the scene’s work has been heading not toward the gallery wall but toward cardboard: the pack, the pull, the sleeve, and the slab treated not as merchandising afterthoughts but as the medium itself. BMAG has spent years working in a room the traditional art world ignored, the art gallery inside a Bitcoin conference. When the painter Nardo showed at Bitcoin MENA in 2024, our conversation kept circling memes as units of cultural transmission and the internet’s layered debris as legitimate subject matter for painting. A year later his Citadel, a seven-foot oil painting built from a 4chan meme, debuted at the Bitcoin Conference in Las Vegas: a monument raised to an internet shitpost. The card movement runs on the same current at a different scale, small enough to fit in a penny sleeve. It’s a conversation we’ve continued in these pages all year, with founders like Alladan Flinn of Based Trading Cards, who describes cards as physical timestamps of the Bitcoin movement. We’ll have much more to say about the artists of this scene, and what they’re bringing to Hong Kong, in the weeks ahead. The Card Expo debuts at Bitcoin Asia 2026, August 27-28 at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre. Vendors of cards, collectibles, and related goods can apply for a table here. Tables are limited. Follow BMAG on X at @BMAG_HQ for new partnership announcements, auctions, and first looks at the artists coming to Hong Kong. This post Sealed in Foil: BMAG’s New Focus on Trading Cards first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Dennis Koch. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Top Crypto Industry Groups Pen Letter to Senate Leaders Urging Them To Support the Clarity Act Top crypto advocacy groups the Crypto Council for Innovation, Blockchain Association, and the Digital Chamber have said in a letter that they support the latest draft of the Clarity Act. In a letter Friday, the trade associations said that passing the bill is necessary to establish the “first comprehensive federal consumer protection framework for digital asset markets” as more Americans begin to use and invest in crypto. U.S. lawmakers are currently mulling over the latest draft of the Clarity Act — a crypto market structure bill aims to set in stone digital asset regulation. The latest draft bans officials and their families from issuing or promoting crypto. “Nearly 67 million Americans, about one in four, already own digital assets, and recent research demonstrates that this trend is only growing,” the letter said. “This is a crucial opportunity for the Senate to improve upon the status quo by establishing durable rules for digital assets that protect consumers, safeguard markets, and ensure that innovation can thrive in the United States,” it added. JUST IN: The Digital Chamber, CCI, and Blockchain Association send letter to Senate Leaders urging them to pass the Clarity Act: "For the United States to maintain its position as the global leader of financial innovation, there is no substitute for the long-term certainty of… pic.twitter.com/2JFqqgKfip — Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) July 24, 2026 Banking representatives, regulators and crypto industry leaders have been meeting at the White House to work on the Clarity Act since last year. The bill was passed by the House of Representatives but has been in deadlock after banking chiefs raised concerns over stablecoins and the yield they would potentially pay customers. America’s biggest crypto exchange, Coinbase, pulled support for the bill in January after clashing with banking chiefs who said that earning yield on stablecoins should be banned. U.S. banks have said they could lose customers if crypto exchanges offer more attractive products for their deposit base. Latest Clarity Bill A new bill has been circulating this week and it is expected it will head to floor vote. On Thursday, Goldman Sachs chairman and CEO David Solomon became one of the first big bankers to throw his support behind the bill. The latest draft bans officials and their families from issuing or promoting crypto — a sore point for Democratic politicians who have argued that President Donald Trump’s family has unfairly benefited from crypto ventures. “These improvements reflect engagement with policymakers across both parties and demonstrate that a well-crafted market structure framework can promote innovation while also bolstering national security,” the letter by the trade associations added. This post Top Crypto Industry Groups Pen Letter to Senate Leaders Urging Them To Support the Clarity Act first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Democrats Push Back on GOP Ethics Text as Thune Doubts a Pre-Recess Clarity Vote Senate Democrats have rejected the ethics provision in the latest Clarity Act draft in blunt terms, and Majority Leader John Thune cast doubt on Thursday that the crypto market-structure bill can pass before the August recess. “Whatever piece of s–t they sent back to us, that was not a serious effort,” Senator Ruben Gallego of Arizona told Politico, faulting Republicans for turning months of talks into language he called far from a deal. Gallego said he is at work on a counteroffer with Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina “and other Republicans that are not being named right now.” “We are still in this fight,” he said. “We are going to send back language.” The dispute centers on enforcement. Democrats say they will not accept an ethics provision with the Department of Justice as its sole enforcer, a stance rooted in distrust of the Trump Justice Department to police the president. Earlier talks broke down over the role state attorneys general would play in enforcing the rules. The GOP language came from an agreement between the White House and Republican Senators Cynthia Lummis and Bernie Moreno. Lummis defended it, and said in a statement that “President Trump is supporting the most robust ethics rules ever imposed on the office of the presidency.” The new draft would bar federal officials from issuing digital assets and would sunset in 2029, and the White House has pressed Democrats to accept it. Tillis called the White House-approved language “good,” yet allowed that “the baseline… falls short of what some of the Democrats want,” and said one more talk with the White House lies ahead. The ethics fight traces to President Trump’s crypto ventures, which a July disclosure tied to more than $1 billion in income over the past year. A group of seven Democrats led by Angela Alsobrooks said this week the text “falls short” on consumer protection, illicit finance, and conflicts of interest. The Clarity Act has 14 days before the August deadline Thune tempered expectations on the calendar. Industry and congressional negotiators had marked August 7 as the date the bill needed to clear the Senate for a real shot at passage this year. “I don’t think we’ll be able to get them done,” Thune told reporters, in reference to Clarity and a separate college-sports bill. “I would like to at least get Clarity started. We’ll see where the votes are.” A start before the recess would leave the bill for a narrow window in September, with midterm campaigning and other priorities set to crowd the floor. Thune’s staff pointed to a Russia sanctions bill that the late Senator Lindsey Graham championed as the next item for floor time. White House crypto adviser Patrick Witt pushed back on Thune’s read, and told CoinDesk he was “perplexed” and “slightly more optimistic,” with the first week of August still open. The bill has moved through months of bipartisan talks, and the House passed its version in July 2025. Beyond ethics, some Republicans have flagged the treatment of stablecoin yield, and Goldman Sachs, one of the bill’s backers, sits opposite JPMorgan in a Wall Street split over the measure. Galaxy Research has cut its passage odds to 50-50. This post Democrats Push Back on GOP Ethics Text as Thune Doubts a Pre-Recess Clarity Vote first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Bitcoinist.App Brings Private Mining Pools to iOS RAS AL KHAIMAH, UAE, July 23, 2026: BFM Company Limited today introduced Bitcoinist.App, a non-custodial Bitcoin mining app and Learn-to-Mine platform released exclusively for iOS. Available from the Apple App Store, Bitcoinist.App gives people a simple way to learn how Bitcoin mining works, access real hashpower, create private Bitcoin mining pools, and receive payouts directly to a wallet they control. Onboarding uses Sign in with Apple, and users can begin from an iPhone without buying mining hardware or entering payment information. Most people will never run a miner at home. In some regions, particularly parts of the developing world, high room temperatures can cause mining equipment to overheat, while the electricity needed to run air conditioning around the clock can make home mining prohibitively expensive. Noise and the miner’s own continuous power draw add to the barrier. In many parts of the world, people access the internet primarily through mobile data on a phone, without a practical wired connection for dedicated mining equipment. A physical miner also needs a stable network connection. Bitcoinist.App lowers those barriers with a simple iOS interface for learning about Bitcoin and directing real, remotely hosted hashpower through three modes: Learn and unlock. The built-in Bitcoin Academy offers a 31-lesson video curriculum that explains Bitcoin and mining in practical terms. Educational videos and optional rewarded ads can unlock free mining rental time, so users can start mining from day one without a purchase. Rent or connect. Paid access is offered through an in-app subscription. Users can access hashpower in 1 TH/s increments from miners hosted in UAE data centers and third-party facilities, or from capacity supplied through third-party hashpower marketplaces. Mining does not run on the iPhone. The app is a simple control layer for real hashpower, and pricing is published in the app. Support for connecting user-owned hardware, including home miners like the Bitaxe, is planned. Route and pool. Users can create a private mining pool, invite friends and family to combine hashpower, and compete with the global hashrate. They can also mine solo or route miners to the Ocean pool for steadier payouts. Bitcoinist.App is strictly non-custodial. There is no internal wallet or platform balance. Users choose an external self-custody wallet for payouts; mined bitcoin is sent to that address rather than held inside the app. Bitcoinist.App does not hold user private keys or mined funds. Bitcoinist.App provides mining infrastructure and education, not a yield product, investment scheme, or custodial wallet. An in-app subscription or ad-supported access provides mining time, not bitcoin and not a promised return. Mining outcomes depend on network difficulty, pool performance, transaction fees, and deployed hashpower. Some hosting and hashpower capacity comes from third parties, so availability and performance can vary by provider. Nothing in this release guarantees any amount of mined bitcoin. “We designed Bitcoinist.App to orange pill the masses through mining and education,” said Fouad Jamil, Founder and CEO of Bitcoinist.App. “People can begin with a phone, learn what Bitcoin mining actually does, direct real hashpower, and receive every sat in a wallet they control. We are not mining for users and we never custody their bitcoin. We provide the infrastructure and tools; users decide where their hashpower goes.” Bitcoinist.App is operated by BFM Company Limited, registered in RAK DAO, Ras Al Khaimah, UAE (Bitcoin Mining license No. 07010714), with mining infrastructure in UAE data centers and third-party mining facilities around the world. Additional capacity may be supplied through third-party hashpower marketplaces. Availability is subject to regional eligibility. Download the app Bitcoinist.App is now publicly available exclusively on iOS. Users can download the app from the Apple App Store. About Bitcoinist.App Bitcoinist.App is a Bitcoin-only, non-custodial mining app and education platform available exclusively on iOS. Designed for ease of use, it lets people learn about Bitcoin, unlock free mining rental time through educational videos and optional rewarded ads, or choose an in-app subscription for ongoing access to real hashpower. Users can create private mining pools with friends and family, compete with the global Bitcoin hashrate, or route miners to Ocean, while payouts go directly to self-custody. Mining does not run on the iPhone. Bitcoinist.App is operated by BFM Company Limited (RAK DAO, Ras Al Khaimah, UAE). The official website is bitcoinist.app. Follow Bitcoinist.App on X, Telegram, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. Press contact pr@bitcoinist.app Press kit bitcoinist.app/bitcoinist_presskit.zip Disclaimer: This is a sponsored press release. Readers are encouraged to perform their own due diligence before acting on any information presented in this article. This post Bitcoinist.App Brings Private Mining Pools to iOS first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Bitcoin Magazine. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Elizabeth Warren Claims Clarity Act Would Help Trump — And ‘Criminals and Cartels’ Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren has blasted the Clarity Act draft bill, claiming it would allow criminals and cartels to move money. Speaking in a video statement on X Thursday, Warren hinted that the potential law would allow President Donald Trump to make money from crypto. 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. “This latest draft bill would make it easier for criminals, oh, and cartels and terrorists to move money and finance their operations — and it fails to protect investors and our financial system,” Warren said in the video. The new draft of the Senate GOP crypto bill does nothing to stop President Trump from making his next $1.4 billion from crypto. It’ll supercharge Trump’s crypto corruption. This bill should be dead on arrival. pic.twitter.com/HuNY52n3ex — Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) July 22, 2026 “It’s going to a vote on the floor. There’s a glaring omission: it does not stop Donald Trump from cashing in on his presidency.” “This isn’t regulation — this is a giveaway. This bill should be dead on arrival,” added Warren. But X users added clarification to Warren’s video, highlighting that the Senate GOP’s updated draft includes ethics provisions banning federal officials from issuing or sponsoring digital assets. Trump’s crypto ventures Warren has long been a crypto critic, initially arguing that billions of dollars go missing every year thanks to tax dodging crypto users. Most recently, Warren has called for a probe into the Trump family’s top crypto ventures. President Trump campaigned on a ticket to help the crypto space but some Washington lawmakers have criticized the way the Trump family has profited from digital asset ventures, such as the Republican’s meme coin, TRUMP, and World Liberty Financial project. Trump and the White House have always denied any conflicts of interest. Latest Clarity Bill Senate Republicans began circulating new text of the bill this week, ahead of a possible floor vote. US banking representatives, regulators and crypto bigwigs have been meeting at the White House to work on the Clarity Act since last year. The bill was passed by the House of Representatives but banking chiefs raised concerns over stablecoins and the yield they will potentially pay customers. Banking representatives have warned they could lose their deposit base and, in turn, their ability to lend to U.S. businesses if companies are allowed to pay rewards on stablecoins. On Thursday, Goldman Sachs chairman and CEO David Solomon became one of the first big bankers to throw his support behind the bill. This post Elizabeth Warren Claims Clarity Act Would Help Trump — And ‘Criminals and Cartels’ first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Smarter Web Company Sells Bitcoin to Clear $11.7 Million Debt Facility The Smarter Web Company has sold a portion of its Bitcoin treasury to repay an $11.7 million convertible debt facility held by TOBAM, a move the company frames as a choice for balance-sheet flexibility over equity dilution. The company sold 177.8909127 BTC at an average price of $65,762 to retire the instrument, known as the “Smarter Convert,” ahead of schedule. The transaction totaled $11,698,540 and was settled roughly two weeks early. After the sale, Smarter Web still holds 2,700 BTC in treasury. Smarter Web’s financing decisions On its face, a Bitcoin treasury company selling part of its holdings can read as a signal of weakening conviction. But the transaction is a debt-management decision. Smarter Web was not exiting its Bitcoin position. It used BTC to extinguish a debt obligation and avoid issuing 7,718,551 ordinary shares, an outcome that would have diluted existing shareholders had the convertible converted into equity instead. Bitcoin treasury companies typically generate headlines in one direction: a purchase, a rise in total holdings, a deeper commitment to Bitcoin as a balance-sheet asset. Investors respond according to their view of corporate crypto exposure, but the pattern is usually additive. Smarter Web sold Bitcoin to settle a specific financing instrument, the company said. That is different from a sale driven by lost confidence in the asset, and different again from a forced sale tied to a liquidity shortfall. The company faced a capital-structure choice. It could leave the convertible in place and risk dilution from a future conversion into shares, or it could draw down part of its Bitcoin position to repay the debt directly. Management chose the second path, prioritizing a cleaner balance sheet over preserving the full Bitcoin position. For shareholders, the logic may be more legible than the alternative. A new issuance of millions of ordinary shares carries a direct and immediate dilutive effect on per-share value. A reduction in Bitcoin holdings, by contrast, leaves the company’s per-share equity structure untouched while removing a fixed liability from the balance sheet. Smarter Web’s remaining 2,700 BTC treasury indicates the company has not abandoned its Bitcoin strategy. The sale addressed one financing obligation, not the broader thesis behind the holdings. This post Smarter Web Company Sells Bitcoin to Clear $11.7 Million Debt Facility first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Bitcoin Slumps But These Mining Stocks Are Up Thanks to AI Deals Bitcoin may be slumping — along with the Nasdaq in general — but one technology investment seems to be doing well: publicly-traded mining companies. Top U.S. Bitcoin mining companies — Hut 8, CleanSpark, and MARA — all experienced gains between 3-7% on Thursday, despite a sell-off across other assets. The Bitcoin price was down about 2% Thursday, trading for $64,760. Major stock indices also took a hit — including the tech heavy Nasdaq — but a handful of miners continued to rally on new deals related to high-powered computing and artificial intelligence. Hut 8 announced Monday that it had signed a second 15-year lease for 352 megawatts of IT capacity at its Beacon Point campus in Nueces County, Texas — doubling the site’s tenant to 704 MW of contracted capacity and fully commercializing the campus against its 1,000 MW of utility capacity. And on Tuesday, IREN Limited signed $2.8 billion in new AI cloud contracts. Formerly a Bitcoin miner, IREN is now transitioning to mostly providing high-powered computing to power AI demand. Both experienced price jumps Thursday morning in New York, with Hut 8 sustaining its rally. AI deals A number of Bitcoin miners are focusing on the industry as minting the biggest cryptocurrency 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. 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. However, running AI data centres require more expertise than Bitcoin mining. This post Bitcoin Slumps But These Mining Stocks Are Up Thanks to AI Deals first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine BlackRock Says Crypto Can Outrun the Quantum Threat — If It Moves Fast Enough BlackRock, the world’s biggest asset manager, has chimed in on the crypto-quantum debate — and is surprisingly optimistic. The firm, which manages over $15 trillion in assets, said in its new report, Quantum Computing and Blockchains, that upgrading existing cryptography to quantum-resistant standards is a far easier task than actually building a functional quantum computer capable of breaking that cryptography. “In our view, PQ migration for cryptocurrencies is eminently addressable from a technical standpoint, and the key challenge is one of timely coordination and implementation,” the report read. The crypto community has sounded the alarm about hypothetical advancements in quantum computers that could in the future be able to break Bitcoin’s cryptography. Some in the space — including Bitcoin developers — have started preparing for a post-quantum future by testing quantum-resistant signatures on live sidechains. Quantum computers do exist but make mistakes and a machine that can break Bitcoin’s cryptography currently does not exist. Bitcoin currently is the biggest computer network in existence. BlackRock has skin in the game after having debuted in 2024 spot Bitcoin and Ethereum exchange-traded funds. BlackRock’s Bitcoin fund had the most successful launch in the history of the ETF industry. BlackRock boss Larry Fink has also talked of Bitcoin being “digital gold” and an “international asset” and has spoken about how crypto networks can help tokenize everything. JUST IN: Michael Saylor announces Strategy, BlackRock, Fidelity and Coinbase are pledging $15 million to support open source Bitcoin development "for the decades ahead." pic.twitter.com/W5q60ph9n3 — Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) July 23, 2026 BlackRock’s views on Bitcoin The report said that while solutions exist for protecting Bitcoin against quantum computers — it is technically simple to upgrade — coordination is hard given the cryptocurrency’s decentralized, consensus-driven development. BlackRock noted that about 35% of circulating Bitcoin’s supply is potentially vulnerable to certain attack types due to exposed public keys, and 11-19% may be permanently lost regardless of migration. Along with crypto bigwigs like Coinbase, Fidelity Digital Assets, and Block, BlackRock on Thursday announced a new Bitcoin Security Consortium aimed at donating funds to engineers to help their open-source work supporting proposals like BIP-360. The asset manager added in the report that while BIP-360 is a credible, well-designed piece of a larger puzzle, it stopped short of calling it the solution. Still, it added that Bitcoin and other crypto networks had the advantage. “That said, it is a much less daunting task to upgrade current cryptographic systems (including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and others) to a quantum-secure standard than it is to build a CRQC from where quantum computing progress stands today,” the report noted. “Thus, advantage remains decidedly with the defense, at the current juncture.” This post BlackRock Says Crypto Can Outrun the Quantum Threat — If It Moves Fast Enough first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Goldman Sachs Backs the Clarity Act, Splitting Wall Street Over Crypto Rules Goldman Sachs chairman and CEO David Solomon has thrown his support behind the Clarity Act, the crypto market-structure bill moving through the Senate, a stance that sets one of Wall Street’s largest banks apart from rivals lining up against it. “I’m very supportive of moving the Clarity Act forward, so we can get some market structure in place and start to move the innovation process along,” Solomon said in an interview with Politico. He called the bill imperfect, and said its value lies in creating “a level playing field to enhance market stability and allow these markets to develop appropriately.” Solomon spoke after Senate Republicans began circulating new text of the bill this week, ahead of a possible floor vote. His endorsement lands against a wave of opposition from other bankers, chief among them JPMorgan chief Jamie Dimon, who declared war on the bill and, in May, upbraided Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong over the industry’s lobbying. Banks split over stablecoin yield The split runs along business lines. The fight centers on a provision that governs stablecoin yield, the rewards crypto platforms can pay users who hold dollar-pegged tokens. Commercial and community banks warn the language would pull deposits out of insured accounts and cut into local lending. Six of the largest banking trade groups, including the American Bankers Association, published a statement Wednesday that called the Clarity Act and its provisions a risk to “the local lending that drives economic activity in the U.S.” The ABA has pushed to strip the yield language, and labor unions have joined the opposition. Investment banks like Goldman, less reliant on consumer deposits, have trained their focus on other parts of the bill. Solomon pointed to language that would let “regulated institutions that have been on the sidelines participate more actively,” a green light for old-guard firms to use digital assets and blockchain rails. “Goldman Sachs’s position is that we believe strongly that we need one system where everybody can participate,” he said, and declined to weigh in on other bankers’ views. The stance fits Goldman’s own turn toward the asset. The bank has disclosed a $1.1 billion position in a spot bitcoin ETF, called the funds an “astonishing success,” and Solomon has revealed a small personal bitcoin holding. The bill’s stablecoin section holds the Tillis-Alsobrooks compromise, which bars passive yield on idle balances while it permits narrow activity-based rewards, a line the banking lobby says leaves too much room. The measure has moved through bipartisan talks for months. The House passed its version in July 2025, and the Senate Banking Committee advanced its text in a 15-9 vote in May. The Clarity Act still faces an uphill battle The path to the floor for the Clarity Act stays murky. Republican senators John Curtis of Utah and John Cornyn of Texas told Punchbowl News they share the banks’ worry over deposit flight. “Crypto is not going to be loaning any money for small businesses,” Cornyn said. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana hinted at concerns of his own. The sharpest problem is ethics. The new Clarity Act draft would bar federal officials from issuing digital assets, language negotiated between Senators Cynthia Lummis, Bernie Moreno, and the White House. Democrats call it too weak, in part because they distrust the Trump Justice Department to enforce limits on the president. President Trump and his family made more than $1 billion from crypto ventures over the past year, a windfall that has fueled Democratic demands for reform. A group of seven Democrats led by Angela Alsobrooks said Wednesday the text “falls short” on consumer protection, illicit finance, and conflicts of interest. Lummis framed the Clarity Act standoff without illusion. “There’s not going to be a provision that makes opponents of the president happy that also makes the president happy,” she said to Punchbowl. Majority Leader John Thune aims for a vote in the coming week, a window that lawmakers say may decide whether the bill lives or dies before the August recess. This post Goldman Sachs Backs the Clarity Act, Splitting Wall Street Over Crypto Rules first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Coinbase Builds Post-Quantum Custody System, Funds Bitcoin’s Crypto Upgrade Coinbase is preparing for future scenarios where quantum computers may be able to crack Bitcoin’s current cryptography. America’s biggest crypto exchange said Thursday that while the threat isn’t imminent, hard problems — such as migrating millions of users and coordinating protocol upgrades across decentralized systems — need to be solved. Quantum computers are still experimental and make mistakes but some in the crypto community have sounded the alarm about hypothetical advancements in the machines that could in the future be able to break Bitcoin’s cryptography. “There’s a lot of noise about quantum computing right now,” Coinbase said. “Some of it is hype. Some of it is fear. And some of it is real.” The publicly-listed company added that a large-scale quantum computer capable of breaking current cryptography will eventually be built, and so the work to prepare needs to start now, “not when it’s urgent.” The gameplan The exchange added that its Independent Advisory Board on Quantum Computing and Blockchain, formed earlier this year, plans to deliver a post-quantum signing pipeline using secure enclaves and threshold cryptography. Coinbase said that currently, its key management system protects approximately 99.9% of the assets the company custodies. But within the next year, the company will deliver an automated signing pipeline that will allow quantum-safe custody as soon as blockchains begin adopting post-quantum schemes. It added that it was bringing together Bitcoin core developers, cryptographers and researchers to discuss post-quantum migration strategy, with plans to continue these regularly. “Preparing Bitcoin for a post-quantum world is one of the most consequential and complex challenges the protocol has ever faced,” the exchange said. Coinbase is also a founding member of the new Bitcoin Security Consortium — alongside BlackRock, Fidelity Digital Assets, Block, and others — which donates funds and dedicates engineers to open-source work supporting proposals like BIP-360. The quantum “threat” Crypto companies and protocols have been planning for a hypothetical future where quantum computers can break top cryptography ever since Google researchers last year said that improvements in the computers may allow them to be able to break the cryptography protecting major cryptocurrencies in just nine minutes. Some in the community have called the warnings overblown, but others have already started preparing for a post-quantum future by testing quantum-resistant signatures on live sidechains. This post Coinbase Builds Post-Quantum Custody System, Funds Bitcoin’s Crypto Upgrade first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Kazakhstan Moves to Build a National Crypto Reserve Funded by Bitcoin Miners Kazakhstan has laid out a plan to build a national strategic crypto reserve fed by its bitcoin miners, part of a two-step push by President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev to pull the country’s large mining industry into a regulated, state-supervised system. A presidential decree signed July 7 sets the frame, and a government resolution approved July 18 supplies the mechanism. The government cleared the rules for strategic digital mining under Government Resolution No. 638, published in the PRG.kz legal database. Together the two measures aim to route mining output and crypto trading through Kazakh infrastructure, with the state taking a share of mined coins for a sovereign reserve. The reserve sits at the center. Under the July 18 resolution, the Kazakhstan government created a program of “strategic digital mining,” in which miners receive electricity quotas at capped tariffs on 10-year contracts from listed power producers. In exchange, they must hand over part of what they mine, according to local reporting. A formula sets the transfer at 10% of mined digital assets after the cost of electricity and grid services, paid each month to the state-linked Astana Hub fund, which passes the coins to the National Investment Corporation of the National Bank for management inside a “national strategic crypto reserve.” The first approved power source is the Ekibastuz GRES-1 coal plant, with a 300-megawatt quota. To qualify, a miner must run a data center of at least 150 megawatts, with rigs that each clear 150 terahashes per second, among other conditions. The resolution defines its reserve as a vehicle to invest in digital assets, in derivatives tied to those assets, and in the shares of companies that build or invest in crypto. Rather than hold coins alone, the structure gives the state a spread of exposure to the sector it now seeks to grow, with the National Bank’s investment arm at the controls. The design turns Kazakhstan’s cheap power and mining base into a channel for state accumulation, an approach that echoes the reserve strategies spreading among governments. Kazakhstan had floated a $1 billion crypto reserve built in part on seized assets and state-mined coins, and its central bank moved to invest up to $350 million in crypto-linked funds. The United States established a strategic bitcoin reserve from forfeited coins last year, a model other states have weighed. NEW: Kazakhstan approves "the implementation of strategic digital [asset] mining" and a national reserve pic.twitter.com/go0HT2Nhl6 — Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) July 23, 2026 Kazakhstan as a bitcoin mining hub Kazakhstan ranks among the world’s largest bitcoin mining hubs, fifth by mining activity in the Cambridge Digital Mining Industry Report from April 2025, a status built on cheap coal power that drew miners after China’s 2021 ban, though the country moved to tighten its mining rules over grid strain. The new program reads as an attempt to harness that base rather than curb it, and the decree directs the Kazakhstan government to tap associated petroleum gas, natural gas, and renewable output for mining. Other crypto tasked The July 7 decree reaches past mining. It sets up a Committee on Digital Assets and Payment Systems under the National Bank, and orders work on tokenization platforms, exchange and custody services, and crypto-fiat channels tied to the financial system. It calls for stablecoins to settle cross-border trade for export and import, tokenized government securities by the end of 2026, and rules that isolate customer assets from a bankrupt provider’s estate. To pull activity onshore, the decree offers a plan to exempt individuals from personal income tax on crypto gains earned through Kazakh providers from the start of 2026 through the end of 2028, plus a window for holders to disclose coins acquired or mined in the past if they move them into regulated infrastructure. The government also plans a National Cryptocurrency Analysis Center by mid-2027 to track transactions and flag illicit schemes, along with a review of DeFi platforms. This post Kazakhstan Moves to Build a National Crypto Reserve Funded by Bitcoin Miners first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Crypto Derivatives Exchange BitMEX To Shut Down in September Crypto exchange BitMEX will close down in September, according to a Thursday announcement on the company’s website. The exchange said that after “a strategic review of the business and the broader crypto industry, the board of HDR Global Trading Limited, owner and operator of BitMEX, has decided to close the exchange.” BitMEX did not give further information on why the exchange was closing but told users to withdraw their funds “as soon as practical.” “The BitMEX platform has always remained grounded to the true ethos of Bitcoin — neutrality, transparency, and decentralisation, which is evident through our peer-to-peer operations and a top priority focus on user fund safety,” the statement read. “While this news is a difficult one to share, we are proud of everything that has been built at the company since its launch as a pioneer of crypto derivatives.” BitMEX added that users will be able to access services as normal until September 23. After that date, the exchange will only hold client assets until they are withdrawn. It continued that it had unstaked all staked BMEX Tokens on the platform, and they are now available in users’ accounts. Run-ins with the law Run by eccentric crypto entrepreneur Arthur Hayes, BitMEX has had its fair share of run-ins with the law. Regulators first stated that BitMEX had allowed U.S. clients to use its exchange without verifying their identities. The company in 2021 paid $100 million in civil penalties after the U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network alleged that the exchange’s senior leadership “altered U.S. customer information to hide the customer’s true location.” BitMEX founders Hayes, Benjamin Delo, and Samuel Reed pled guilty in 2022 to violations of the Bank Secrecy Act for failing to operate an anti-money laundering program at the cryptocurrency exchange. Each founder then agreed to pay a $10 million fine to settle the charges. Then, last year, BitMEX was hit with a further $100 million fine for its guilty plea for breach of the United States Bank Secrecy Act. But following the election of crypto-friendly President Donald Trump, all three founders were pardoned in 2025. This post Crypto Derivatives Exchange BitMEX To Shut Down in September first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine BlackRock, Coinbase, Strategy Among Nine Firms Launching the Bitcoin Security Consortium, Pledging $15 Million To BTC Security Development Nine of the largest names in institutional Bitcoin launched the Bitcoin Security Consortium on Thursday, a group backed by $15 million in member pledges over three years to fund work on the network’s long-term security, including preparation for a future era of quantum computing. Founding members are Anchorage Digital, ARK Invest, BlackRock, Block, Blockstream, Coinbase, Fidelity Digital Assets, Galaxy, and Strategy, a lineup that spans holders, custodians, exchanges, infrastructure and payments providers, and asset managers. The consortium’s day-to-day work falls to Mike Schmidt, executive director of the developer non-profit Brink, who serves in a volunteer role. Schmidt tweeted about the role, saying, “I said yes because supporting Bitcoin’s developers and helping people understand their work are the two things I’ve spent my time in Bitcoin on, through Brink and Optech. This group wants to do both: fund the people already securing Bitcoin, and bring accurate information about that work to audiences it doesn’t currently reach.” Each member directs its own funding to the developers, researchers, and organizations it chooses; the $15 million figure is an aggregate of independent pledges rather than a pooled fund. The group also plans to serve as a reference point on Bitcoin’s security for investors, the public, and the media, and to publish material it will update as the field develops. Funding advocates The consortium drew clear limits around its role. It says it does not develop or direct Bitcoin’s protocol, takes no position on specific protocol changes, and does not speak for Bitcoin or its developers. It casts itself on the model of industry groups that fund the open-source software they rely on without controlling the work. “Bitcoin’s development is, and will remain, the work of a global, decentralized community of contributors,” the group said. “As long-term holders, we have every incentive to see Bitcoin remain secure for generations,” said Phong Le, Chief Executive Officer of Strategy. “Funding the people who do this work, and helping inform the conversation around it, is a natural way for us to contribute.” Robert Mitchnick, BlackRock’s Global Head of Digital Assets, said Bitcoin Core developers “do incredibly important work,” and that the members would make “significant additional funding available to support Bitcoin’s long-term security needs.” Brink, the non-profit coordinating the effort, has funded open-source Bitcoin work since 2020, including more than $1 million to developers in a single year and the first third-party security audit of Bitcoin Core. Schmidt co-founded the group with developer John Newbery. Bitcoin and quantum Much of the consortium’s stated focus lands on the quantum question. Large-scale quantum computers able to break BTC’s cryptography do not exist today, and credible estimates place such capability years out. The group frames post-quantum protection as a long-term priority the technical community already works on, and positions itself as a grounded source as that work moves. That framing matches a wider institutional turn toward the issue. Coinbase has formed a quantum computing advisory board, Galaxy launched its own quantum readiness initiative with developer grants days before, and BlackRock has listed quantum computing as a risk in its spot BTC ETF filings. Developers, for their part, have proposed migration plans built on schemes such as BIP-360 that would move coins to quantum-resistant addresses, and the Bitcoin Policy Institute has warned the timeline is compressing. Views on urgency diverge, a split the consortium’s members embody. Adam Back, founder of member firm Blockstream, has called the quantum threat decades away, while other voices place a capable machine within the next several years. The stakes are large either way, since Coinbase research has estimated that between 20% and 50% of BTC’s supply, much of it in older wallet formats, could face exposure to a long-range quantum attack. The consortium sidesteps the timeline debate and stakes its role on funding and information rather than a forecast. Its own summary holds that the risk is real, yet the network is preparing. This post BlackRock, Coinbase, Strategy Among Nine Firms Launching the Bitcoin Security Consortium, Pledging $15 Million To BTC Security Development first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Swiss Bank BancaStato Launches Bitcoin Trading Through Sygnum and Avaloq BancaStato, the cantonal bank of Ticino in southern Switzerland, has launched regulated crypto trading, a service that lets clients buy, hold, and sell bitcoin from the bank’s existing web and mobile apps, the digital asset bank Sygnum said on Thursday. The bank connected Sygnum’s application programming interface to its Avaloq core banking system and digital channels, a setup that places bitcoin trading inside the same apps clients use for traditional accounts. At launch, clients can trade bitcoin (BTC) and other crypto with market orders placed by quantity or U.S. dollar value. Bitcoin sits at the center of the offering, a pattern across the wave of European banks that have added crypto services. BancaStato clients gain exposure to the asset through a regulated channel rather than a standalone exchange, and their holdings rest in Sygnum’s custody rather than on the bank’s own balance sheet. Sygnum said client assets are held in an institutional-grade, multi-layer custody solution built on hardware and software controls, governance processes, and independent external audits. The firm said all client assets are held off-balance sheet in regulatory and legal compliance, a structure meant to shield holdings if the bank enters bankruptcy. The point matters for bitcoin holders, since a bearer asset kept off the balance sheet stays separate from the claims of a failed institution’s creditors. The integration runs on Sygnum’s B2B API without a separate order management system, an approach the firms said cuts cost and complexity. “BancaStato, becoming the first bank on Avaloq’s SaaS environment to enable clients to buy, hold and sell crypto via API with Sygnum directly from within its e-banking platforms, marks a significant step in the maturity and scalability of regulated digital asset infrastructure,” said Fritz Jost, Sygnum’s chief B2B officer. Founded in 1915, BancaStato runs its core banking and digital channels on the Avaloq platform in a software-as-a-service model. Curzio De Gottardi, the bank’s head of products and services and vice-chairman of its executive board, cast the launch as an extension of the bank’s existing lineup. “Our seamless integration of traditional assets, investment solutions — and now digital assets — further enhances our group’s future-ready offering,” he said. BancaStato joins Zuger Kantonalbank and more than 25 other banks and financial institutions on Sygnum’s B2B platform. Sygnum said its partner banks give more than a third of the Swiss population a route to own digital assets. Bitcoin in swiss banks The launch adds to a run of Swiss institutions bringing BTC to their clients. Zürcher Kantonalbank, the country’s fourth-largest bank, rolled out bitcoin trading and custody; St. Galler Kantonalbank opened bitcoin buying and custody to retail clients; and UBS has weighed bitcoin trading for select wealth clients. Sygnum itself has built out bitcoin-linked lending, from a partnership with Relai on BTC-backed loans to a $50 million bitcoin-backed syndicated loan for Ledn. Sygnum holds a Swiss banking license and, since June 30, 2026, a Crypto-Asset Service Provider license under the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation, granted by Liechtenstein’s Financial Market Authority. That license lets EU banks tap Sygnum’s infrastructure to launch digital asset services, a path other providers such as Bitcoin Suisse have taken from the same jurisdiction. This post Swiss Bank BancaStato Launches Bitcoin Trading Through Sygnum and Avaloq first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Nasdaq-listed Zhibao Technology to Take 3,500 Bitcoin in Proposed PIPE Financing Zhibao Technology, a Shanghai-based insurance-technology firm listed on the Nasdaq, said Wednesday it has signed a non-binding term sheet for a stock sale that would be paid for in bitcoin — some 3,500 coins, worth near $220 million at current prices. The deal, a private investment in public equity known as a PIPE, would have a buyer named Joyertech and Information OPC subscribe for Zhibao shares with consideration the company expects to include about 3,500 BTC. The figure remains subject to final valuation, custody arrangements, an audit, regulatory review, and definitive agreements. Zhibao stressed that the term sheet binds no one, and that the transaction may change or fall through. The structure hints at a familiar move. Zhibao (NASDAQ: ZBAO), which pioneered a “2B2C” embedded-insurance model in China and launched the country’s first digital insurance brokerage platform in 2020, would keep running its existing business at first. Yet the buyer would name a majority of the board at closing, a control transition that would hand the newcomers the steering wheel while the current team minds the legacy operation until a later “separation, disposition, or other restructuring.” $220 million in bitcoin has a new owner In plain terms, a modest insurance-tech company would become a home for a large pile of bitcoin, with new owners in charge. Rather than raise cash and buy coins on the market, Zhibao would take the bitcoin itself as payment, a swap that seats a treasury on its balance sheet from day one. It is the kind of reinvention that has swept public markets over two years, as firms remake themselves around a bitcoin treasury and corporate holdings climb to records. Zhibao’s stock jumped near 24% on the news. Behind ZBAO are employees, insurance clients, and a founding team that built something new in a crowded market, and the term sheet would fold that story into a treasury vehicle shaped by people who may value the shell as much as the business. For the current staff, the promise is continuity “until the separation” — words that carry their own uncertainty. The wager holds warning signs. Analysts have called the treasury boom a bubble, and some treasury firms have started selling their coins under market pressure this year. This post Nasdaq-listed Zhibao Technology to Take 3,500 Bitcoin in Proposed PIPE Financing first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Crypto’s US Workforce Is Tiny, But Industry Punches Above Its Weight: Report The crypto industry may be relatively small in terms of employers — but the economic contribution is big. That’s according to a new report published by the National Cryptocurrency Association and the Pragmatic Policy Group, which reveals that while only 34,000 people are employed by crypto companies, the industry will contribute $55 billion in 2026 to the U.S. economy. The report, “Crypto at Work”, which claims to be the first to comprehensively analyze the crypto industry’s footprint in the U.S. labor market, said that jobs in the space also average $133,000 a year — more than double the $64,000 national median wage, and ahead of average pay in tech of and manufacturing. “Crypto creates many jobs outside the tech industry and directly supports more jobs than key manufacturing industries,” the report said. Using a standard input-output economic model, PPG calculated that every direct crypto job supports roughly six additional jobs elsewhere in the economy — at suppliers, and at businesses where crypto workers spend their paychecks. Stacking those indirect and induced jobs on top of the direct total produces a figure of 232,000 jobs in total that the industry supports. By raw headcount, though, crypto remains a small employer. The report itself benchmarks its 34,000 direct jobs against coffee and tea manufacturing (28,400 jobs) and tobacco manufacturing (10,600 jobs) — hardly the scale of a major American industry. The industry’s footprint is also geographically lopsided: California, New York, and Texas account for 60% of all crypto jobs, with 57,600, 53,800, and 26,500 respectively. Heartland states—Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, and the Dakotas among them — together support just over 17,000 jobs. The report singles out Colorado and North Dakota as rising hubs, pointing to Colorado’s crypto-friendly tax policy and firms like Riot Platforms and Crusoe Energy, and North Dakota’s flare-gas mining operations and a pilot stablecoin from the state-owned Bank of North Dakota. PPG describes the study as the first comprehensive, economy-wide look at crypto’s labor market impact, built on 2024 Bureau of Economic Analysis and Bureau of Labor Statistics data. The firm also flagged a limitation in its own approach: because “a dedicated crypto workforce profile does not yet exist,” it modeled crypto’s financial activities using the occupational mix of broader technology industries rather than traditional finance. NCA, which funded the research, said it hopes the findings give policymakers “an evidence-based understanding of the sector’s economic contribution.” The nonprofit launched in 2025 to promote what it describes as safe, informed cryptocurrency adoption in the U.S. This post Crypto’s US Workforce Is Tiny, But Industry Punches Above Its Weight: Report first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Benchmark Raises Hut 8 Price Target After Bitcoin Miner Signs $9.8 Billion AI Data Center Deal Investment bank Benchmark has raised its price target on Bitcoin miner Hut 8 following news that the company had signed a second 15-year lease ​worth $9.8 billion for its AI data center. Equity research analyst Mark Palmer reiterated his “buy” rating on the Toronto- and Nasdaq-listed miner in a note Wednesday, raising its price target to $195, up from $165 — an 80% upside from Hut 8’s current share price of nearly $110 a pop. Palmer argued that the deal validates Hut 8’s “power-first” approach to building out AI infrastructure. Hut 8 announced Monday that it had signed a second 15-year lease for 352 megawatts of IT capacity at its Beacon Point campus in Nueces County, Texas — doubling the site’s tenant to 704 MW of contracted capacity and fully commercializing the campus against its 1,000 MW of utility capacity. Hut 8 shares climbed over 10% on the news, closing near $101 after peaking above $106. Palmer estimates the new Beacon Point lease alone could contribute roughly $655 million a year in net operating income once stabilized, pushing the campus’s total contract value as high as $50.2 billion if renewal options are exercised. Hut 8 is among a growing list of publicly traded Bitcoin miners pivoting toward AI and high-performance computing as mining margins get squeezed by a falling Bitcoin price and rising difficulty. The company struck a Google-backed deal in December with Anthropic and Fluidstack to build out as much as 2.3 gigawatts of AI data center capacity in the U.S. Hut 8’s mining ventures Rivals including Terawulf, IREN, and Cipher Mining have signed similar multi-year HPC contracts with Google and Microsoft, while Bitfarms said last year it would wind down its mining operations entirely to focus on high-performance computing. Hut 8, by contrast, has kept its mining business running through its majority stake in American Bitcoin, the mining venture backed by Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. Hut 8 is scheduled to report second-quarter earnings on August 4. This post Benchmark Raises Hut 8 Price Target After Bitcoin Miner Signs $9.8 Billion AI Data Center Deal first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Lightning Labs Launches Wavelength: “Bitcoin on Easy Mode” for Developers and Autonomous Agents Lightning Labs, the company developing core Lightning Network software including Lnd, Loop, and Taproot Assets, has released the alpha version of Wavelength. The toolkit enables developers and AI agents to add self-custodial Bitcoin payments to applications through a simple non-custodial API, without running nodes, managing channels, or sourcing liquidity. In a July 21, 2026 blog post, Lightning Labs described Wavelength as “Bitcoin on Easy Mode for Agents and Humans.” The company stated that the Lightning Network already delivers instant, global, low-fee payments under user control, but previously required infrastructure most builders preferred not to operate. Wavelength closes that gap by turning the hard parts of Bitcoin and Lightning integration into a handful of API calls. High-Level Overview Wavelength embeds a self-custodial wallet that runs inside web or mobile apps (via WebAssembly or compiled binaries) or as a standalone client. Users control their own keys on-device. The system supports on-chain Bitcoin, Lightning payments via atomic swaps, and an Ark-like settlement layer for fast, low-cost off-chain transfers that can settle in batches to the blockchain. Every off-chain payment uses a standard BOLT 11 invoice, so the wallet interoperates with the existing Lightning Network from the first integration. Lightning payments route through Loop for deep, reliable liquidity. A coordination service settles transfers between users but never takes unilateral control of funds. According to the announcement, users can always perform a unilateral exit to on-chain Bitcoin at any time via an explicit exit command, without needing cooperation, the Wavelength SDK is open source. The same Wavelength API is exposed to AI agents as typed tool calls through the Model Context Protocol (MCP). Agents can hold balances and pay for API calls, data feeds, or other agent services in fractions of a cent. Wallet creation and unlocking designed to remain outside the agent channel so seeds and passwords are not exposed to the model. This pairs with L402, Lightning Labs’ protocol for machine-native authentication and per-request Lightning payments. Core commands cover the full lifecycle: create/unlock, balance, recv (for addresses or invoices), send, activity, and exit. Integration options include the embedded SDK, a gRPC/REST API, browser WASM package, and an MCP server. Documentation is structured for both human developers and agents, including llms.txt indexes and agent onboarding guidance. Availability and Roadmap Wavelength is available immediately on Signet and testnet. Mainnet access is invitation-only; interested parties can request it after installing the toolkit. Bitcoin is supported at launch. Stablecoin support is planned via Taproot Assets so the same API surface can handle both. Future work includes deeper mobile embedding and optional direct Lightning channel support using Lnd. Lightning Labs noted in its announcement that during the closed alpha, Lightning transactions carry a minimal 1 basis point service fee (plus standard network routing fees), with ordinary Bitcoin network fees applying for on-chain activity. Pricing may evolve. On X, Lightning Labs summarized the release: “Announcing Wavelength, the easiest way to integrate bitcoin for agents and humans. With a simple non-custodial API, anyone can integrate Lightning into their app and get instant, high volume, low fee transactions. Machines can pay machines. Humans can pay humans. Anywhere.” A follow-up post directed builders to a form for early mainnet access. The release positions Wavelength as infrastructure that lowers the barrier for application developers, “vibe coders,” and autonomous agents to offer self-custodial Bitcoin payments by default rather than as a specialist feature. Full documentation, quickstarts, and the open-source repository are available at wavelength.lightning.engineering and the linked GitHub project. This post Lightning Labs Launches Wavelength: “Bitcoin on Easy Mode” for Developers and Autonomous Agents first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Juan Galt. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine New Clarity Act Draft Would Bar Trump and Officials From Issuing Crypto, With a 2029 Sunset Senate Republicans released an updated version of the Clarity Act on Wednesday, a draft that for the first time carries a crypto ethics agreement barring the president, vice president, members of Congress, federal judges, and other covered officials from issuing or sponsoring digital assets. The new Clarity Act text, posted after morning briefing calls with stakeholders, adds a section titled “Ban on certain digital asset transactions.” It states that a covered individual “shall not, in exchange for consideration,” issue or sponsor a digital asset, a prohibition that reaches public officials and employees during their service, and their spouses. A companion clause bars the listing of any digital asset found to be issued or sponsored by a covered individual in violation of the ban. The bill offers a safe harbor. A covered individual would avoid violation by placing a direct interest in a digital asset in a qualified blind trust, divesting it, or both, along procedures that track the ethics-agreement rules under section 208 of title 18. A separate carve-out protects continued use of a covered individual’s name, image, or likeness when an issuer or intermediary used it before the person entered covered status. JUST IN: Senate Republicans release updated Clarity Act text that bans the President and covered officials from issuing digital assets and requires them to sell their crypto holdings or put them in a blind trust. pic.twitter.com/v7UDXGI45B — Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) July 22, 2026 The ethics package carries an expiration date. Under the draft, the provisions have no force after noon on January 20, 2029, and no person faces penalty after that sunset for conduct on or before it. The timing lines up with the end of the current presidential term. Clarity Act dispute over President Trump’s crypto efforts The ethics language answers a months-long Clarity Act dispute over President Trump’s crypto ventures, which a July financial disclosure tied to about $1.4 billion in 2025 income through the $TRUMP token and World Liberty Financial. Eleanor Terrett reported the package was negotiated between the White House and Republican Senators Cynthia Lummis and Bernie Moreno, and that it does not carry Democratic sign-off. Democrats on the Banking Committee had pressed for enforceable conflict-of-interest rules, and an amendment to bar officials from crypto ties failed during the May markup of the Clarity Act. Beyond ethics, industry sources say the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act stays intact from the committee version. The BRCA holds that non-custodial developers and infrastructure providers are not money transmitters for building or maintaining decentralized networks, a protection the industry has pushed to preserve. Further amendment details The Lummis-Grassley amendment keeps criminal liability for anyone who “knowingly” facilitates illicit transactions, and the Keep Your Coins Act preserves the right to self-custody. The stablecoin-yield section holds the Tillis-Alsobrooks compromise: a ban on interest paid on idle payment-stablecoin balances, with room for rewards tied to activity such as transactions or staking, as long as those rewards do not function as interest on a bank deposit. A new section of the Clarity Act builds out law enforcement tools. It raises funding for state and local crypto investigations and blockchain analytics, sets up training for police and prosecutors, creates a “cyber center” against nation-state actors such as North Korea and Iran, and forms a public-private task force on fraud. It also requires stablecoin issuers to comply with lawful orders to freeze, seize, burn, and reissue tokens. The text carries bankruptcy protections that treat customer digital assets as property of the customer rather than part of a failed company’s estate, a rule meant to head off another FTX-style loss. The 616-page draft came from Republicans, and it lacks Democratic support for the moment. Senator Lummis thanked her “Democratic colleagues for their important contributions” and voiced a commitment to “reaching a deal in the coming days that will allow this legislation to become law.” Majority Leader John Thune plans a floor vote in the coming weeks. The release caps a stretch of pressure to move the Clarity Act. The House passed its version in July 2025 on a 294-134 vote, and the measure has waited in the Senate since. The Senate Banking Committee advanced its text in a 15-9 vote in May. Coinbase and other firms have pushed for passage before the August recess, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent put the effort at the “1-yard line,” and Trump has pressed the chamber to act. This post New Clarity Act Draft Would Bar Trump and Officials From Issuing Crypto, With a 2029 Sunset first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Winklevoss Twins Donated $10 Million From Bitcoin Sale to Trump Super PAC Crypto entrepreneurs Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss donated over $10 million after liquidating Bitcoin to American super PAC MAGA Inc., which supports President Donald Trump. A Tuesday filing shows each twin — the founders of the public crypto exchange, Gemini — donated over $5 million each. The donation comes about one month after the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission asked a judge to vacate the agency’s $5 million penalty against Gemini. The twins back in 2024 announced that they had donated 30.94 Bitcoin, valued at over $2 million at the time, to President Trump’s campaign, claiming it would “put an end to the Biden Administration’s war on crypto.” During the Biden Administration, regulators cracked down hard on crypto exchanges — including Gemini — but since President Trump took office, a number of lawsuits have been scrapped. MAGA Inc. has raised over $400 million in fresh cash ahead of November’s midterm elections. The Winklevoss twins are Bitcoin OGs The Winklevoss Twins — who claimed they played a part in the creation of Facebook — founded crypto exchange Gemini in 2014 after being early Bitcoin backers. Crypto industry observers have long speculated that the twins are two of the biggest Bitcoin holders in the space. The twins have long praised President Trump’s pro-Bitcoin and pro-business stance, claiming it’s crucial for the future of the crypto industry in the country. Tyler in particular emphasized the need for a political shift to prevent further harm to the industry and to restore an environment conducive to innovation and economic growth. “President Donald J. Trump is the pro-Bitcoin, pro-crypto, and pro-business choice,” he said back in 2024. “This is not even remotely open for debate. Anyone who tells you otherwise is severely misinformed, delusional, or not telling the truth.” Back in May, Gemini shares jumped over 20% in after-hours trading after the Winklevoss twins announced a $100 million Bitcoin-funded investment in the company alongside Q1 earnings showing 42% year-over-year revenue growth. The quarter’s results included a narrowed net loss of $109 million and a sharp rise in services and credit card revenue, though trading volumes had fallen from a year earlier following Bitcoin’s crash from its October peak. The rally followed months of turmoil for Gemini, including layoffs, executive departures, shareholder lawsuits, and a stock price that had dropped more than 89% from its IPO high, partly offset by a CFTC derivatives license granted in April. This post Winklevoss Twins Donated $10 Million From Bitcoin Sale to Trump Super PAC first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Bitcoin ETFs Take in Nearly $1B in New Money — But What Will the Price Do? American investors have thrown fresh cash at Bitcoin exchange-traded funds over the past six days, helping the price of the top cryptocurrency to rise again. Data from Farside Investors shows that close to $1 billion has been pumped into the funds since Tuesday last week. The price of Bitcoin was recently trading at nearly $65,860, down slightly over the past 24 hours but up 1% over a seven-day period. The leading cryptocurrency touched a weekly high yesterday of $66,891. Funds managed by BlackRock, Morgan Stanley, and Grayscale have taken in over $930 million in the six-day streak after weeks of lacklustre flows and sloppy price action. Bitcoin is currently nearly 50% below its October record of $126,080 after a massive liquidation event, war in the Middle Eastern and inflation all weighed the cryptocurrency down. Bitcoin upside potential? Analysts remain wary of digital assets’ future price path as markets reckon with a re-escalation of the Trump administration’s war with Iran and inflation. European asset management firm CoinShares last week said that while investors are back at putting fresh cash in Bitcoin via the exchange-traded products, other factors may hold digital asset markets from going higher. “We have said for some time that Bitcoin has probably reached, or is close to, its floor,” James Butterfill, head of research at CoinShares, wrote. “But we see no significant upside potential from here.” Current macroeconomic headwinds, such as the US bombing Iran and rising oil prices, could see inflation go up again. The price of Bitcoin has typically done well on news that inflation is coming down because investors expect interest rates to come down. And another report by NYDIG last week claimed that the asset’s current slump is down to supply mechanics rather than risk sentiment. The report revealed that Bitcoin’s year-to-date performance makes it the worst-performing asset — losing out against US treasuries, silver, and currencies like the Swiss Franc. It added that if Bitcoin’s price action were to match other drawdowns — like the bear market of 2022 — a “potential cycle low near $38k-$39k” was possible. This post Bitcoin ETFs Take in Nearly $1B in New Money — But What Will the Price Do? first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст