Bitcoin

Bitcoin Magazine Bitcoin’s Bear Cycle Looks Familiar — And That Might Be the Bullish Case Bitcoin has fallen from a record high of roughly $126,080 in October to trade recently in the low-$60,000s — a decline of nearly 50% that has rattled sentiment. But it may just be business as usual. According to a Thursday report from asset manager VanEck, Bitcoin’s current slump tracks the asset’s historical four-year halving cycle, in which mining rewards are periodically cut in half, tightening new supply and often preceding a bear phase. The firm framed this downturn as a recurring feature of Bitcoin’s market structure rather than a break from it. VanEck’s GEO framework — which tracks Global Liquidity, Ecosystem Leverage, and On-Chain Activity — currently shows two of three signals reading neutral, with ecosystem leverage in constructive territory. The firm says that combination points to early signs of a bottom forming, and that it may be time to begin scaling into positions. Separate research from blockchain analytics firm CryptoQuant points in a similar direction. The firm’s analysts highlighted on-chain data showing that long-term Bitcoin holders — typically the market’s steadiest, most loss-tolerant cohort — are now sitting on deeper unrealized losses than the market overall, based on adjusted Net Unrealized Profit/Loss (NUPL) data. Analyst MorenoDV noted this week that this exact dynamic, long-term holders hurting more than average, has shown up at every prior major cycle bottom. Still, CryptoQuant urged caution against declaring a bottom prematurely. In past cycles, that same long-term-holder metric fell to much deeper negative extremes before a true low was reached. Current readings haven’t gotten there yet, meaning the biggest cryptocurrency could still face one more sharp capitulation move — unless stronger institutional demand and a more resilient holder base allow this cycle to bottom out with less damage than previous ones. Taken together, the two reports suggest a market that looks stressed by historical standards, but not yet at the extremes that have marked past cycle floors. This post Bitcoin’s Bear Cycle Looks Familiar — And That Might Be the Bullish Case first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine White House to Host Crypto Industry Execs Next Week: Report Crypto and prediction market bigwigs are set to gather at the White House next week, according to a Thursday report from POLITICO. The report, citing people with knowledge of the matter, said the industry officials would meet one day before the Commodity Futures Trading Commission holds a meeting for its new Innovation Advisory Committee. The committee will feature a panel of experts also from the crypto, prediction market and traditional finance spheres. Despite the long-awaited crypto Clarity Act being delayed, regulators are moving ahead with pro-crypto initiatives. BREAKING: White House to host gathering for crypto industry officials next week, POLITICO reports pic.twitter.com/mdVnzglpmN — Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) August 13, 2026 POLITICO’s report did not mention if President Trump would attend the event. Last week, pro-crypto lawmakers were hoping the Clarity Act passed before Congress departed for August recess. After a delay, a vote will now go ahead in September. Lawmakers started mulling over a new draft of the bill, which was passed by the House of Representatives last year, in July. The text tackled the issue of ethics, banning government officials from promoting or making money from crypto. President Trump campaigned on a ticket to help the America become the crypto capital of the world, and received backing from major players in the space. Since taking office, the president has signed a number of pro-crypto measures, including a March 2025 executive order directing the creation of a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. Regulators have also scrapped a number of high-profile lawsuits against crypto companies, and made a push to watchdog the industry in a more helpful way. This post White House to Host Crypto Industry Execs Next Week: Report first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Tether Finally Completes Independent Audit of Reserves With KPMG Stablecoin giant Tether has announced that KPMG U.S. completed the first independent audit of its reserves after years of struggling to get a Big Four accounting firm to do so. The San Salvador-based company, which issues the largest stablecoin in existence, USDT, said the audit was “the largest inaugural financial audit in history.” Tether for years was criticized for being coy about its reserves and not having an independent audit of what it holds behind its flagship token. Tether said over the years that it was eager to work with a Big Four firm for an audit. Tether Completes the Largest Inaugural Financial Audit in History Read more: https://t.co/vWG0fFSUxH — Tether (@tether) August 13, 2026 “For years, some detractors said an audit of Tether could not be completed,” Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said in a statement. “They said the Company refused to subject itself to the most rigorous scrutiny. We have once again proven them wrong. Completing our financial statement audit sets a new standard for the industry and reflects the leadership we’ve brought to this market from the start.” Tether did not mention its Bitcoin holdings in its statement, nor did it immediately respond to questions from Bitcoin Magazine. But it said that KPMG “physically counted and inspected every individual gold bar held by Tether, verifying the existence and identifying information of each bar rather than relying solely on reports from custodians or counterparties.” Tether added that all assets and statements were subject to “independent substantive testing and verification.” The company has in recent years upped its gold buys, holds more U.S. treasuries than some countries and has nearly $60 billion in Bitcoin in its reserves, according to data from Arkham Intelligence. “Tether has evolved from a disruptive stablecoin issuer into one of the most financially significant and operationally sophisticated private companies in the world,” continued Ardoino. “This audit demonstrates that our financial infrastructure and governance have evolved alongside that responsibility.” Tether’s USDT product has a market cap of over $183 billion, making it the third biggest cryptocurrency in existence. This post Tether Finally Completes Independent Audit of Reserves With KPMG first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine UBS Ups Bitcoin Position, Buys More Shares in BlackRock’s ETF Switzerland’s largest bank has upped its exposure to Bitcoin, according to regulatory filings. UBS bought more shares in BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust, bringing its total position to over $83 million across 2.5 million shares, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The bank has slowly upped its exposure to the biggest cryptocurrency by market cap since BlackRock’s top fund got approved back in 2024. JUST IN: Switzerland's largest bank UBS discloses owning $83.2 million of BlackRock's Bitcoin ETF pic.twitter.com/Nq9AU4GwdX — Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) August 13, 2026 The filings are the latest examples of traditional institutions seeking exposure to Bitcoin. ETFs like BlackRock’s Bitcoin Trust — which trades as IBIT — allow investors to buy exposure to the leading cryptocurrency without having to store the digital coin directly. Since the SEC approved a slew of Bitcoin funds in January 2024, major firms have been able to buy exposure to the asset via shares of the regulated vehicles that trade on stock exchanges. BlackRock’s IBIT is the most successful crypto ETF: The fund has received more cash than any other crypto ETF and currently has $47.3 billion in assets under management. Pension funds and U.S. states have all bought exposure to Bitcoin via the ETFs, along with more traditional investments like tech stocks and other U.S. equities. The shares in IBIT aren’t the only Bitcoin investment UBS has, either: the filing shows that the bank also has exposure to other premium income and other Bitcoin-related ETFs, bringing its ETF holdings in the cryptocurrency to around $90 million. The bank also has invested in American Bitcoin Corp., the Bitcoin mining company backed by U.S. President Donald Trump’s sons, Eric and Donald, Jr., with a position worth a little under $1.5 million. News dropped earlier this year that the Swiss bank was planning to offer Bitcoin trading to a select group of private clients in the country. This post UBS Ups Bitcoin Position, Buys More Shares in BlackRock’s ETF first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Data Breach at Trezor Leaks Info on Nearly 14,000 Bitcoin Wallet Users Hardware wallet manufacturer Trezor has announced a data breach exposing customer data. Writing on X Thursday, the company said that 13,689 customers from the US, UK, Sweden, Colombia, Brazil, Italy, and Portugal who received an order 90 days prior to August 8 were affected. We have some difficult news to share. Unfortunately, one of our shipping providers has experienced a data breach that exposed sensitive order data. This affects new customers in the US, UK, Sweden, Colombia, Brazil, Italy, and Portugal who received an order within the 90 days… — Trezor (@Trezor) August 13, 2026 “Our systems and devices remain secure, but affected customers could experience an increase in phishing attempts,” the Prague, Czech Republic-based company said. “We are deeply sorry to the community and those affected.” Trezor said that 11,742 customers had their names, emails, phone numbers, and shipping addresses leaked. Another 1,947 customers had just their names, cities and emails exposed. SatoshiLabs, the parent company of Trezor, said in an email to Bitcoin Magazine that its third-party fulfillment partner, ShipMonk, had experienced “unauthorized access to their systems containing customer data.” “Scammers can use the leaked information to send fake emails, make fake phone calls, send fraudulent letters, or potentially impersonate banks, crypto exchanges, or even Trezor,” the company said. SatoshiLabs said it was continuing to investigate the incident. Trezor is one of the most popular Bitcoin hardware wallet solutions, and also has support for storing other cryptocurrencies. Bitcoiners’ personal data has been targeted by cybercriminals in the past: back in 2020, an unauthorized party accessed popular hardware manufacturer Ledger’s e-commerce and marketing database, leaking over 1 million email addresses and the personal contact data of nearly 10,000 customers. And at the start of this year, customers reported receiving emails from Global-e, Ledger’s payment partner, that a data breach at its cloud systems leaked sensitive customer data. The Bitcoin community is still reeling after hackers targeted Canadian company Coinkite’s popular Coldcard product. Hackers started draining $111 million in Bitcoin from the popular Coldcard hardware wallets at the end of last month.The amount stolen could be much higher as investigations continue, with some estimating the real figure to be over $130 million. The theft continued, with Bitcoiners — and Coinkite — asking users to move their funds as hackers continued to drain digital coins from the later devices. This post Data Breach at Trezor Leaks Info on Nearly 14,000 Bitcoin Wallet Users first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Chinese AI Beats Restricted OpenAI and Anthropic Cybersecurity Models, Bitcoin Industry Warns Bitcoin company leaders and open-source developers are publicly stating that Chinese AI models are currently outperforming restricted American frontier systems in defensive cybersecurity work, forcing researchers to rely on them to secure critical Bitcoin infrastructure. Rob Hamilton, CEO of AnchorWatch, a Bitcoin self-custody insurance company, reported cripling American AI restrictions. After integrating OpenAI’s trusted cyber program (having already completed KYC months earlier), he was blocked from further analysis on a codebase he had already responsibly disclosed. “It absolutely guts me as a patriotic American to have to do this, but I will be going back to using Chinese open source models to conduct my research to protect Bitcoin infrastructure,” Hamilton wrote. “Black hats will not hit these issues. The white hats will.” Days later, he gained access to OpenAI’s “Daybreak Blue” cyber model and was blocked again within 19 minutes while red-teaming Bitcoin infrastructure. Francis Pouliot, founder of Bull Bitcoin, a Bitcoin-only exchange focused on self-custody infrastructure, described the situation bluntly. “I have never seen OpenAI this cucked. It’s cucked beyond belief now. Not even for security, for anything related to Bitcoin,” he posted. “USA AI industry is completely cooked if they don’t change this path,” he concluded, adding “Open-source Chinese LLMs. [orange heart emoji],” meaning that open Chinese models like Kimi K3 are actually helpful to Bitcoin. In a follow-up, Pouliot detailed how a Chinese open-source model identified a money-stealing exploit in a project he was auditing, demonstrated it on regtest, and helped patch it. When he asked the American models he pays for to review the same patch, they refused. PortlandHODL, a Bitcoin Core contributor who builds for AnchorWatch, publicly highlighted the performance gap. “US-based Frontier AI Model – ‘You’re absolutely right!’ Chinese Open Model – ‘78 critical vulnerabilities found.’ The implications of this are unfathomable,” he posted. In a follow-up, he added that he felt he was “basically asking Xi to not get my software hacked at this point,” calling for OpenAI and Anthropic to create proper access programs for U.S. citizens doing defensive security work. Alex Thorn, Head of Firmwide Research at Galaxy, signed a recent Bitcoin Policy Institute open letter demanding trusted access to frontier models for open-source defenders. “Americans should not have to rely on Chinese AI to defend themselves, their projects, companies, or clients from cyber-attacks,” he wrote. “RED TEAM NEEDS THE MODELS.” On August 10, the Bitcoin Policy Institute — a Bitcoin and, of late, AI-focused policy think tank — published an open letter signed by more than 70 organizations across the digital-asset ecosystem, including major custodians, exchanges, mining firms, and open-source development groups. The letter calls on frontier AI labs to establish clear trusted-access programs for qualified open-source and digital-asset defenders. It argues that current restrictions and safety guardrails leave legitimate security researchers without access to the strongest models, forcing them to rely on less capable open-weight alternatives while sophisticated attackers face no such limits. The signatories request early access to cyber-capable models, sufficient compute, secure environments for reviewing code, and direct channels with lab security teams, stating that frontier AI could become one of the most powerful defensive technologies available if defenders are given fair access. These statements reflect a broad pattern among Bitcoin security researchers: American models from OpenAI and Anthropic frequently refuse or restrict legitimate defensive work, even to users who are supposed to have been granted explicit access, while Chinese models such as Kimi K3 operate without the same guardrails and are delivering confirmed results. Concerns about hosting infrastructure of Chinese models being an attack vector can also be mitigated, since they are open source and can be run on American-hosted data centers, a trend that is likely to threaten the U.S. AI market if it continues. Coldcard Exploit Triggers Ecosystem-Wide Response The cybersecurity pressure became acute in the Bitcoin industry after a firmware flaw in Coldcard hardware wallets was exploited beginning July 30, resulting in the theft of well over $100 million in bitcoin from seeds generated with insufficient entropy. Bitcoin Magazine published an urgent advisory urging affected users to migrate funds: COLDCARD SECURITY RISK: IMMEDIATE ACTION REQUIRED. In response, a volunteer effort known as the Bitcoin Red Team formed, led by open-source developer Calle (creator of Cashu and the Android version of Bitchat) and Rob Hamilton. The group has conducted large-scale AI-assisted audits of Bitcoin open-source repositories, using models including Kimi K3 as the primary workhorse alongside limited access to Western systems. Early results, covered by Bitcoin Magazine, showed thousands of findings across hundreds of projects, including dozens of critical issues, with spending covered largely by OpenSats. By August 8, after more than 100 hours of work involving dozens of contributors, the team reported scanning 501 projects and producing 7,958 findings, of which 1,280 were rated high or critical severity. The majority of compute spend continued to go to Chinese open-weight models. Lessons from the Red Team Campaign Most recently, Calle shared lessons from the intensive red-team period. The effort has essentially completed a basic scan of virtually the entire Bitcoin open-source landscape; low-hanging fruit is largely exhausted, the developer wrote on this X account. Maintainers across projects have validated many of the critical and high-severity reports, while response times from projects vary widely and serve as a signal of overall health. Key takeaways include the need for every project to maintain its own permanent AI audit pipeline going forward. Projects that began such reviews months earlier are in a markedly stronger position. Unmaintained repositories should be treated as likely broken and unreliable. Calle also warned that the human-only era of open-source security review is over; verification is now effectively free, and information overload must be handled with AI rather than complaints about PR slop. Multiple concurrent and diverse human approaches remain the strongest method for finding vulnerabilities, and external red-teaming will likely be required indefinitely. Calle also repeatedly emphasized that developers should stop writing security-critical code in C. In a follow-up post he explained: “we’re finding memory-safety vulnerabilities in c projects that are prevented by default in many other languages. In the past, finding a simple buffer overflow wasn’t enough. You’d need a highly skilled hacker to turn the vulnerability into a working end-to-end exploit. Today, that’s a single prompt.” Bitcoin was the first major open-source ecosystem to confront this collision between accumulated human code and frontier AI capability. The rest of the software world is expected to follow. This post Chinese AI Beats Restricted OpenAI and Anthropic Cybersecurity Models, Bitcoin Industry Warns first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Juan Galt. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Nakamoto Posts First Positive Adjusted Operating Income, Despite $133M GAAP Net Loss Bitcoin operating company Nakamoto Inc. dropped its first quarterly results on Thursday, marked by a wide GAAP net loss in what the company is calling a turning point in its underlying operations. The Nashville-based company posted total operating revenue of $35.9 million for the quarter ended June 30, 2026, split between $25.6 million from its media and asset management units and $10.4 million from its Bitcoin treasury and derivatives strategy, according to a Thursday statement. Nakamoto shares (NASDAQ: NAKA) rose more than 2% Thursday morning in New York. On a GAAP basis, Nakamoto reported an operating loss of $149.1 million and a net loss of $133.0 million, or $6.65 per diluted share — driven largely by a $105.2 million non-cash goodwill impairment and $48.7 million in mark-to-market losses on its Bitcoin holdings. Stripping out those non-cash items, the picture looks different: adjusted operating income came in at $7.3 million, which the company says is its first positive adjusted operating income since it became a Bitcoin operating company. “This quarter we delivered the first positive adjusted operating income since Nakamoto became a Bitcoin operating company,” David Bailey, the company’s Chairman and CEO, said, pointing also to a roughly $45 million reduction in outstanding debt and the extension of about $105 million in loan principal to June 2027. The quarter also brought a major structural shift: Nakamoto completed the closure of its legacy healthcare clinics on June 19, 2026, finishing its transition into a pure-play Bitcoin operating company. The board authorized a $25 million share buyback and added Chief Investment Officer Tyler Evans as a director. Nakamoto’s asset management arm, UTXO Management, launched a new structured credit fund and said it guided a client vehicle, the 210k Capital Fund, through what it described as the first cleared Bitcoin Depositary Receipt trade settled via traditional prime brokerage and DTCC infrastructure — a milestone the firm frames as a step toward integrating Bitcoin products into mainstream financial markets. Separately, the 210k Capital fund itself fell 5% for the quarter, outperforming a 14% decline in Bitcoin over the same period. The company’s media unit, BTC Inc., generated $22.6 million from its flagship Bitcoin 2026 conference and announced a new daily video network, BM TV, along with new institutional-focused events aimed at connecting corporate executives and capital allocators with the Bitcoin industry. Nakamoto ended the quarter holding 4,467 Bitcoin, valued at approximately $261.5 million. Bitcoin Magazine is published by BTC Inc, a subsidiary of Nakamoto Inc. (NASDAQ: NAKA) This post Nakamoto Posts First Positive Adjusted Operating Income, Despite $133M GAAP Net Loss first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Bitcoin Price May Be Battered, but Structural Adoption Story Still Intact: Grayscale Bitcoin’s price has shown signs of stabilizing after a rough stretch, but even setting aside where prices go in the near term, asset manager Grayscale says adoption of the cryptocurrency over the medium and long run remains largely unchanged. The reason: continued, unsustainable growth in government debt as a factor that keeps inflation and currency-debasement risk elevated. That backdrop, Grayscale argues, could push a widening range of investors toward scarce assets and alternative stores of value — a category where Bitcoin, with its fixed supply, is increasingly well positioned as a candidate. It added that the adoption of stablecoins and tokenization are set to make blockchain infrastructure commonplace across financial services. Top banks and asset managers have piled into the tokenization space the past year and are fast adopting crypto technology. Grayscale argues that as that spreads, more banks, brokerages, and other intermediaries will have both the technical rails and regulatory clarity needed to hold and transact in Bitcoin — eroding the wall that has historically kept it structurally separate from mainstream finance. “As the spread of the technology continues, many more intermediaries will have the necessary infrastructure (and regulatory clarity) to transact and store balances in Bitcoin — it will no longer be structurally apart from the rest of the financial system,” the note by the firm’s head of research, Zach Pandl, reads. The firm added that younger investors show a markedly higher appetite for digital assets, and alternative investments have become a standard portfolio component rather than a fringe allocation. The analysis expects institutions, wealth platforms, and individual investors alike to keep folding Bitcoin into diversified portfolios — largely through exchange-traded products, a shift it describes as already well underway. Taken together, the report says that a cyclical downturn in price doesn’t undercut the longer-term adoption thesis. The Bitcoin price was recently $63,549, down close to 50% from its October record of $126,080. This post Bitcoin Price May Be Battered, but Structural Adoption Story Still Intact: Grayscale first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Goldman Sachs to Acquire NEOS Investments in $2.25B Deal, Adding Bitcoin Income ETFs to Lineup Goldman Sachs has agreed to acquire NEOS Investments in a deal worth up to $2.25 billion that will give the Wall Street giant another Bitcoin-related product for its portfolio, the banking giant announced Wednesday. JUST IN: Goldman Sachs acquires NEOS, including $1 billion in their Bitcoin High Income ETFs pic.twitter.com/hYmCBEDV20 — Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) August 12, 2026 The deal will be in cash and equity, contingent on performance and service milestones, and will bring the Neos Bitcoin High Income ETF (BTCI), Boosted Bitcoin High Income ETF (XBCI) and Ethereum High Income ETF (NEHI) under Goldman Sachs Asset Management. CEO David Solomon called NEOS’s approach “highly complementary” to Goldman’s existing buffer, managed-outcome and income capabilities. NEOS co-founders Garrett Paolella and Troy Cates, who will join Goldman Sachs Asset Management as partners, framed the deal as pairing NEOS’s “entrepreneurial spirit” with Goldman’s scale. NEOS manages roughly $30 billion across 19 ETFs that use options strategies to generate monthly income. Combined with Goldman Sachs Asset Management’s existing $40 billion in income-oriented, options-based ETFs, the deal will push Goldman’s active ETF business to about $80 billion — making it the eighth-largest active ETF manager, according to Morningstar — inside a broader $130 billion ETF platform. The move follows Goldman’s earlier acquisition of Innovator Capital Management, rounding out a three-way combination focused on derivative-income and buffer/outcome strategies. The Bitcoin ETFs in question don’t hold the cryptocurrency directly, rather they use derivatives to generate income from crypto-linked exposure rather than owning the underlying coins, per NEOS’s disclosures. Therefore, the high headline yields come largely from selling options premium, not necessarily reflecting the price performance of Bitcoin itself. The acquisition effectively hands Goldman Sachs a ready-made foothold in crypto-income ETFs — a corner of the market it hadn’t built organically — right as institutional appetite for digital-asset-adjacent, income-generating products continues to grow alongside the broader derivative-income boom. The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2027, pending regulatory approval. This post Goldman Sachs to Acquire NEOS Investments in $2.25B Deal, Adding Bitcoin Income ETFs to Lineup first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Bitcoin Flashes Bottom Signals as “Digital Gold” Narrative Returns Bitcoin is sending two notable signals to the market this week: on-chain data suggests the cryptocurrency may be forming a macro bottom, while its price behavior is increasingly echoing gold’s role as a safe-haven asset. That’s according to two reports from blockchain data firm CryptoQuant, whose analysts pointed to the early stages of a bottoming process for the biggest and oldest cryptocurrency. The price of the largest cryptocurrency recently stood at $63,362, mostly unmoved over a 24-hour period. Over the past week, Bitcoin is down nearly 2%. Since it notched a record of $126,080 in October, it has shed nearly 50% of its value. JUST IN: Bitcoin is now trading in its "Cost of Production" zone, typically the sign of a bear market bottom. HODL pic.twitter.com/rXi1kzxSXj — Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) August 12, 2026 “At each major cycle bottom, long-term holders were sitting on deeper unrealized losses than the broader market,meaning the cohort normally associated with the strongest conviction and lowest sensitivity to volatility is carrying greater unrealized stress than the market as a whole,” wrote analyst MorenoDV. “The current structure fits that pattern,” he added. The signal comes from adjusted Net Unrealized Profit/Loss (NUPL) data for long-term holders (LTH) — investors typically seen as the most resilient cohort in the market. Currently, LTH aNUPL has crossed into negative territory and sits below the broader market average, meaning even long-term holders are now sitting on losses greater than the market as a whole. Historically, this exact pattern — long-term holders hurting more than average — has shown up at every major cycle bottom. The setup lines up with Bitcoin trading roughly 50% below its cycle high, reinforcing the view that this is more than an ordinary correction. But analysts caution against calling a bottom just yet. In previous cycles, LTH aNUPL fell into much deeper, more prolonged negative readings before a true low was in — a level of losses some describe as “depression territory.” Today’s numbers haven’t reached that extreme. The report added that Bitcoin could still need one more capitulation leg to push long-term holder losses to historical extremes. Alternatively, stronger institutional demand and a more structurally resilient holder base could allow the market to bottom with comparatively less damage than in past cycles. Bitcoin’s 90-day correlation with gold has swung from nearly -0.9 in early 2026 to around +0.7, according to data highlighted by CryptoQuant CEO Ki Young Ju, who described the move as a return to “digital-gold-era levels.” The shift suggests investors are once again pricing Bitcoin as a scarce, non-sovereign asset — one that can act as a hedge against currency debasement, fiscal stress, and geopolitical uncertainty, much like gold. Investors have long-touted Bitcoin as “digital gold” — a long-term store of value like the precious metal. And sometimes, they have been correlated. But Bitcoin’s behavior remains split. A month-to-date comparison shows it sometimes trading in step with the Nasdaq, behaving like a liquidity-sensitive risk asset, while at other times tracking gold’s moves as a scarcity play. Its volatility, though, continues to run far higher than gold’s. Analysts also urge caution in reading too much into the correlation shift. A positive correlation isn’t inherently bullish — the two assets can just as easily fall together as rise together. This post Bitcoin Flashes Bottom Signals as “Digital Gold” Narrative Returns first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine OCC Says It’s ‘Open for Business’ as Crypto Firms Line Up for Bank Charters The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency says it will keep pushing to revive de novo bank chartering, a campaign that has already opened a federal on-ramp for some of the largest companies in crypto. In a statement Tuesday, the regulator said reinvigorating new bank formation remains a priority and commended the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation for its own recent efforts on the issue. “De novo chartering is a sign of a healthy banking system,” said Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan V. Gould, adding that the FDIC’s new process for reviewing deposit insurance applications aligns with the OCC’s work to reverse the decline in new charters. JUST IN: US regulator OCC approves Bitcoin and crypto firms to become national banks. "America and the OCC are once again open for business." pic.twitter.com/p6ig74pLYD — Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) August 12, 2026 Over the past 15 years, de novo chartering fell significantly, the OCC said. From 2011 through 2014, the OCC received an average of fewer than four charter applications per year, and in some years it received none at all. “For more than a decade, regulators signaled that those seeking a federal bank charter and federal deposit insurance need not apply,” Gould said. “Entities that engage in legally permissible activities, including those involving digital assets and other novel technologies, should have a path to becoming a national bank. America and the OCC are once again open for business.” The numbers have turned. The OCC has received 40 de novo applications in the last 18 months, including applications for national trust banks — a charter type it has granted for decades. In many cases it has ruled within 120 days of receiving a complete application. For the first time in five years, a full-service national bank has received final approval and opened its doors: Erebor Bank, N.A., backed by Palmer Luckey, Joe Lonsdale and Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund. A number of top crypto companies have received conditional approval, including Ripple, Circle, Crypto.com and Paxos. Donald Trump-backed decentralised finance platform World Liberty Financial has also applied, hoping to get institutions on board with using its native stablecoin, USD1. The appeal is structural: the charter lets crypto companies hold client assets and handle trade settlement inside a federally regulated framework. For an exchange like Coinbase, whose application remains under review, it would mean serving as a crypto custodian on a federal basis, managing assets for larger entities. Not everyone is happy about it, though. The Independent Community Bankers of America in December urged the OCC to reject Coinbase’s application for a national trust bank charter, arguing the exchange has “demonstrably flawed risk and control functions” and operates under governance that “prevents independent oversight.” And in February, the American Bankers Association — the country’s largest banking lobby — urged the OCC to slow its review of crypto companies’ charter applications. Underneath the procedural objections is a turf war. One of the biggest gripes from traditional banks comes down to stablecoins: companies like Coinbase want to pay users rewards for holding the tokens, which banks say is unfair and could erode their deposit base. The OCC, for its part, says it will continue to encourage the formation of new banks and strengthen the resilience of the federal banking system. This post OCC Says It’s ‘Open for Business’ as Crypto Firms Line Up for Bank Charters first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Bitcoin Yawns As Fed’s Favorite Inflation Gauge Eases Bitcoin’s price dipped slightly before remaining mostly steady after data on Wednesday showed that U.S. inflation was subdued. The price of the largest cryptocurrency recently stood at $63,863, mostly unmoved over a 24-hour period. Over the past week, Bitcoin is also flat. The core consumer price index, which excludes often-volatile food and energy categories, rose 0.2% from a month earlier and increased 2.5% from a year earlier — the slowest pace since March 2021. Energy and gas prices fell for a second month and grocery prices dropped for the first time since March, according to the print. The news takes the pressure off Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh to raise interest rates in September. Softer inflation data eases the path toward rate cuts, and lower rates reduce the opportunity cost of holding an asset that pays no yield. Bitcoin has typically performed well in a low-interest rate environment. Sticky inflation in the world’s biggest economy has led the Federal Reserve to take a cautious approach with interest rates. Despite Wednesday’s softer inflation data, prices are still higher ​than they were a year ago and wages in the U.S. are not keeping up. Bitcoin has faced increased volatility since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran in February, with the leading cryptocurrency dropping hard on initial reports of war. Bitcoin is now down nearly 30% year-to-date. Still, in recent weeks, investors have shown a growing appetite for the asset. Spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds in the U.S. have experienced massive inflows — the biggest since April last week — despite negative news for the crypto industry: a massive exploit of the popular Coldcard Bitcoin hardware wallets last month shook crypto investors and a vote on the long-awaited digital asset market structure bill, the Clarity Act, has been delayed. This post Bitcoin Yawns As Fed’s Favorite Inflation Gauge Eases first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine AI Hyperscalers Are Pricing Bitcoin Miners Off the Grid— Here’s Why Its a Massive Win-Win If you’ve scanned headlines over the last year, you’ve likely seen the prevailing market narrative: Bitcoin miners are abandoning their operations and pivoting to AI data centers, signaling a retreat from proof-of-work. To casual observers, this looks like a surrender. Proof that Bitcoin was just a temporary placeholder until a “better” compute workload arrived. However, if you look through the lens of power infrastructure and thermodynamics, that story gets the reality completely backwards. The migration isn’t a sign of bitcoin weakness; but a long-overdue, structurally bullish rebalancing of global energy pricing. Here is the underlying reality that the market completely misunderstood. AI vs. Bitcoin: Why Big Tech and Bitcoin Rigs Need Totally Different Data Centers The misconception stems from assuming all digital workloads are created equal. In reality, Artificial Intelligence and Bitcoin Mining require completely opposite physical and digital environments: An AI training cluster is fragile. If a 100-megawatt facility drops power mid-run, millions of dollars of training state are destroyed. It demands high-grade baseload power, ultra-low latency fiber, and 99.999% continuous uptime. Bitcoin mining, by contrast, is completely indifferent to latency, location, or uptime. ASICs can operate in a remote desert, next to a stranded hydro dam, or on an off-grid flare gas pad. If grid power prices spike, a miner can shut down in seconds without losing data or damaging its hardware. The Power Grid Eviction: How AI Is Pushing Bitcoin to Stranded Off-Grid Energy For the past decade, Bitcoin miners operated on major electrical grids simply because that was where power substations already existed. But using prime, grid-connected baseload electricity to run an interruptible, location-agnostic program was always an economic inefficiency. Now, AI hyperscalers are running into a massive bottleneck: getting new 100+ megawatt grid interconnections approved by utilities can take 3 to 5 years. Hyperscalers are buying up every megawatt of prime, grid-tied power real estate they can find. In doing so, AI is pricing Bitcoin off the main electrical grid. Far from destroying Bitcoin, this eviction restores it to its ideal thermodynamic role. Pushed off the grid, miners are forced to seek out energy that no one else can use: stranded wind in West Texas, flared natural gas in remote oil fields, or off-peak hydro in mountain ranges. AI takes the expensive grid power; Bitcoin captures the world’s wasted energy at the edge, and acts as the buyer of last resort for stranded, wasted, or curtailed energy sources. Eliminating the Miner Sell Pressure The primary structural weakness of pure-play Bitcoin mining companies has always been balance sheet volatility during bear markets. When hash price drops, debt-heavy miners are forced to dump their mined Bitcoin reserves onto the open market just to pay electricity bills and corporate overhead. This forced liquidating creates artificial downward pressure on Bitcoin’s price. The AI pivot fundamentally fixes this balance sheet flaw: Fixed USD Cash Flow: Multi-year hosting leases signed with AI companies generate steady, high-margin dollar income. Eliminating Forced Sales: With corporate overhead and debt service fully covered by AI lease revenue, operators no longer need to liquidate their Bitcoin treasury at market bottoms. The “Mullet” Data Center: Forward-thinking operators run a hybrid model, using high-margin AI workloads on grid-tied power to pay fixed bills, while maintaining flexible Bitcoin operations to monetize off-peak power and balance local grid loads. The Big Tech Paradox: Why AI Hyperscalers Will Eventually Hold Bitcoin The final piece of this puzzle is a paradox that tech hyperscalers are only beginning to confront. Big Tech is spending hundreds of billions of dollars to build an AI infrastructure that makes intelligence and digital content infinitely abundant. But when a digital good becomes infinitely abundant, its marginal cost trends toward zero. How do you protect a multi-trillion-dollar tech balance sheet when your primary product, digital output, is unconstrained? While AI makes digital intelligence infinite, Bitcoin imposes absolute, unalterable digital scarcity (capped strictly at 21 million units). Furthermore, Bitcoin is the only monetary asset whose issuance is directly bound to the same thermodynamic laws of work and energy that run data centers. Consider the staggering opportunity cost already compounding on hyperscaler balance sheets. Data from Bitcoin for Corporations reveals that if Amazon (AMZN) had allocated its $123.03B cash reserve to Bitcoin over a 3-year period instead of cash and short-term Treasuries, its treasury productivity would have surged from 12.21% to 119.55%—a 10x increase in capital efficiency representing over $132 billion in unrealized gains. (Try the Bitcoin Treasury Simulator with any stock ticker) Just as a tech company signs a long-term Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) to lock in electricity costs, holding Bitcoin operates as a PPA for monetary value. By sitting on massive cash stockpiles that yield nominal paper returns while spending billions fighting for physical energy, Big Tech leaves hundreds of billions in value on the table. The shift taking place across data centers isn’t a trade-off where one technology wins and the other loses. It is a market optimization. AI gets the high-speed, grid-connected real estate it needs to build synthetic intelligence. Bitcoin gets pushed further into the wilderness to capture cheap, wasted energy, backed by miners who no longer have to sell their coins to keep the lights on. And as the opportunity cost of holding depreciating fiat cash becomes too massive to ignore, hyperscalers will realize that securing the power grid is only half the battle: the ultimate reserve asset for an empire of infinite compute is physical digital scarcity. 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 AI Hyperscalers Are Pricing Bitcoin Miners Off the Grid— Here’s Why Its a Massive Win-Win first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Nick Ward. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Regulators To Push Pro-Crypto Initiatives Following Clarity Act Delay The long-awaited crypto Clarity Act has stalled and is due a September vote but regulators are ready to step in to advance crypto rules regardless, according to reports. Bloomberg reported Tuesday that the Securities and Exchange Commission was preparing to roll out this week initiatives to help the crypto industry. The regulator has said that it will hold an open meeting Friday “to create a tailored offering regime for certain investment contracts involving crypto assets.” JUST IN: SEC to unveil 'major crypto plans' as Clarity Act stalls — Bloomberg pic.twitter.com/H1OpsGBJP9 — Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) August 11, 2026 And JD Supra reported Tuesday that Commodities and Futures Trading Commission Chairman Michael Selig was ready to proceed with “rulemaking whether or not the Clarity Act is enacted, with the goal of finalizing rules before the end of the current administration.” The news from the regulators comes as the Clarity Act stalls. Pro-crypto lawmakers were last week hoping the Clarity Act passed before Congress departed for August recess. After a delay, a vote will now go ahead in September. Lawmakers started mulling over a new draft of the bill, which was passed by the House of Representatives last year, in July. The text that tackled the issue of ethics, banning government officials from promoting or making money from crypto. But Democrats still had a problem with it and some were deliberately holding it back, according to Republicans like Cynthia Lummis. Regulators the SEC and CFTC have become remarkably more crypto-friendly since President Trump took the White House. When Gary Gensler was in charge of the SEC under Democratic President Joe Biden, the regulator went after crypto firms like Coinbase and Kraken. Under the Republican Administration, the regulators have scrapped a number of high-profile lawsuits against crypto companies. President Trump campaigned on a ticket to help make the United States digital asset capital of the world, and has passed pro-crypto legislation since taking office. This post Regulators To Push Pro-Crypto Initiatives Following Clarity Act Delay first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Should Bitcoin Companies Build USD Reserves? Understanding The Truth Strategy’s U.S. dollar reserve has reached $4.65 billion, up from $3.75 billion two weeks earlier. It has also sold almost 7,000 BTC since late June 2026. Many are wondering why a company built around accumulating Bitcoin would choose to hold billions of dollars in fiat. More importantly, should other Bitcoin businesses do the same? Strategy holds cash because it’s in a very unique position Strategy increasingly operates as an issuer of Digital Credit: preferred securities backed economically by an enormous Bitcoin balance sheet. These instruments create fixed dollar dividends obligations. Bitcoin produces no cash flow. Strategy’s software business produces far too little cash to cover its capital structure. Traditional credit analysis compounds the problem. S&P assigned Strategy a B- rating in October 2025, citing its Bitcoin concentration, weak dollar liquidity, and very weak risk-adjusted capital. Under S&P’s methodology, Bitcoin is effectively excluded from the capital base used for this analysis because of its market risk. In our coverage of the S&P rating, we specifically mentioned that a cash reserve, amongst other things, was worth exploring to improve credit ratings. Strategy therefore holds dollars to support its credit issuance. That is literally the whole reason. More dollar liquidity can improve the perceived safety of its preferred securities, broaden investor demand, and potentially lower its cost of capital—in the eyes of credit ratings agencies. The cash still carries an economic cost. Excess capital should produce a return. A conventional company can reinvest it, repurchase shares, or distribute it. A Bitcoin company can buy more Bitcoin. Every dollar held in cash replaces potential positive returns with guaranteed negative real returns. Strategy accepts that cost because its business model depends on issuing more credit. Three unusual conditions exist at once: Bitcoin dominates its balance sheet, rating agencies heavily penalize that Bitcoin exposure, and management intends to keep issuing Digital Credit. All three conditions are pretty unique individually and it is exactly the combination of all three that creates the situation where they need to hold cash. For instance, if Strategy did not want to issue credit, then it wouldn’t need the cash. The economic consequence of cash reserves The math creates some glaring problems with cash reserves. Suppose Strategy issues $100 of preferred stock carrying a 10% annual dividend and holds three years of dividend coverage in cash. It must reserve $30 and can deploy only $70 into Bitcoin. The preferred still costs $10 per year. The $70 invested into Bitcoin must therefore generate: $10 ÷ $70 = 14.29% A stated 10% cost of capital becomes a 14.29% hurdle rate on the capital actually deployed. The reserve raises the required return by 42.9%. Interest earned on the cash reduces the hurdle somewhat, but the structural drag remains. The true hurdle is actually higher, however, because BTC’s volatility means it will heavily underperform the hurdle rate in some years, and these years still require the dividends to be paid (here I am assuming that dividends are not skipped). So aside from the cash drag, there is also a volatility drag imposed by attempting to amplify a volatile asset. This risk must be compensated for by adjusting the hurdle rate higher. The larger the required reserve, the less of every new dollar reaches Bitcoin. If Bitcoin appreciation fails to exceed this higher hurdle over time, common shareholders bear the cost. However, cash is far from useless. Cash creates useful optionality. It can cover dividends and interest during Bitcoin drawdowns, reducing the risk of forced Bitcoin sales. It can also support opportunistic repurchases of securities when they trade below their stated value. Strategy recently did exactly that. In late July, it paid $25 million for $28.89 million of STRC stated value, a 13.47% discount. It later used $108.6 million from Bitcoin sales to retire another 1.15 million STRC shares. Buying preferred stock below par removes more senior claims and future dividend obligations than the cash spent. It is also accretive to Net Bitcoin Per Share. Should Bitcoin companies accumulate cash or bitcoin? For most Bitcoin companies, cash needs should be tied to the operating business rather than to an arbitrary reserve target—consider that Strategy literally does not know how much reserves it needs to get a better rating or for more credit investors to become interested in STRC. A cash-flowing company usually has a good understanding of its cash outlay. It should hold enough dollars to cover payroll, taxes, debt service, vendor payments, near-term capital expenditures, and a reasonable buffer for volatility in operating cash flow. The right reserve depends on the stability of those cash flows. A profitable business with recurring revenue, low fixed costs, and predictable expenses can operate with a smaller buffer. A cyclical or capital-intensive business needs more. The reserve should rise because the business requires liquidity, not because management simply wants a large cash balance. Once operating needs and a prudent liquidity buffer is covered, additional cash needs a specific economic purpose. Otherwise it dilutes returns by generating a large opportunity cost. For any company, excess capital should compete directly against the company’s hurdle rates, repurchasing undervalued shares, reducing expensive liabilities, or investing in projects that can earn a higher return. In conclusion, Strategy is a very, very rare case. Its cash reserve exists only because it is building a large credit issuance business on top of a Bitcoin balance sheet while credit ratings agencies impose significant institutional inertia which treats legitimate, liquid assets as zero value. Companies without that liability structure—which is basically all other companies—have far less reason to accumulate dollars beyond their working capital buffer. 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 Should Bitcoin Companies Build USD Reserves? Understanding The Truth first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Allard Peng. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine CFTC Charges Goliath Ventures With $400M Bitcoin Fraud The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has sued a Florida crypto trading firm and its chief executive, alleging they ran a Ponzi scheme that took in at least $397 million from about 1,600 customers and spent it on fake payouts and personal luxuries. The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, names Goliath Ventures Inc. and its CEO, Christopher Delgado, a Florida resident. According to the CFTC, Delgado and his company solicited money from the public for crypto asset trading, primarily in Bitcoin and other cryptos, then misappropriated all of it. .@CFTC Charges Goliath Ventures Inc. and CEO with $400 Million Fraud Scheme: https://t.co/3bnHedt4rk — CFTC (@CFTC) August 11, 2026 Rather than trading customer funds as promised, the agency alleges, the defendants used incoming money to pay fictitious profits to earlier investors and to bankroll what the complaint describes as Delgado’s lavish lifestyle. The CFTC also says the defendants guaranteed customers the return of their principal, their profits, or both, and sent out account statements showing gains that did not exist. Delgado has already admitted criminal responsibility. In June, in a parallel case brought by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida, he pleaded guilty to federal charges tied to the fraud. The Securities and Exchange Commission filed its own civil action against Delgado and Goliath on Tuesday, the same day as the CFTC complaint. CFTC Chairman Michael S. Selig framed the case as part of a broader posture toward digital asset markets, saying the agency would keep policing fraud and manipulation while it develops clearer rules so legitimate firms can build domestically. David I. Miller, the agency’s director of enforcement, said the division remains what he called an important cop on the beat on digital commodity fraud. The CFTC is seeking restitution for customers, disgorgement of ill-gotten gains, civil monetary penalties, trading and registration bans, and a permanent injunction barring further violations of the Commodity Exchange Act and the agency’s regulations. The allegations in the civil complaint remain unproven. Counsel for Delgado and Goliath Ventures was not identified in the CFTC’s announcement. Restitution orders in cases like this one are frequently difficult to collect. The agency routinely notes that wrongdoers may not have enough remaining assets to repay what victims lost. This post CFTC Charges Goliath Ventures With $400M Bitcoin Fraud first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Casa CEO Nick Neuman: 233k BTC Moved To Safety After Coldcard Exploit Proves Self-Custody Resilience Casa CEO Nick Neuman pointed to onchain data from the recent Coldcard firmware exploit as evidence that self-custody strengthens Bitcoin’s resilience as an asset class. In an X post on Aug. 9, Neuman cited figures showing that in the days after the Coldcard hack, where approximately 2.1k BTC was stolen, 22k BTC moved to exchanges and 233k BTC left long-term holder wallets in on-chain transactions, according to data by Checkonchain. “The onchain metrics around the Coldcard incident reinforce how important self-custody is to the resilience of Bitcoin as an asset class,” Neuman wrote. DATA BY CHECKONCHAIN Galaxy Research has tracked confirmed losses from the Coldcard entropy flaw as low as 1.7k, ranging to more than 2k BTC. The stolen coins are tracked across multiple attack waves beginning July 30, with higher estimates approaching $130 million. The vulnerability stemmed from a March 2021 firmware issue that weakened seed generation on certain Coldcard models. Neuman said Casa’s own customer conversations indicated that some of the 233k BTC movement reflected holders shifting from non-Coldcard single-key setups (such as Ledger or Trezor) into multisig wallets after reassessing single-key risk. Other flows involved multisig users removing Coldcard devices from their keysets. “So somewhere between ~10x-100x the amount of bitcoin stolen was moved to safety as people sounded the alarm,” he wrote. “This is a giant flashing neon sign showcasing the resilience that self-custody adds to the network.” Neuman contrasted the outcome with a hypothetical centralized custodian breach. In that scenario, he argued, the numbers would likely reverse: limited funds might escape while the majority would be lost in a single event. With self-custody, attackers had to target individual wallets, limiting the scale of any single success and giving holders time to react. “If all that BTC was held at a custodian and the custodian was hacked instead, those numbers would have been flipped,” Neuman stated. “As it was, the thieves had to crack one wallet at a time (and are still going), earning a little BTC each wallet, instead of cracking one wallet and getting a massive payday.” He concluded that self-custody benefits not only individual holders but the Bitcoin network itself by distributing risk and preserving confidence. Casa, founded in 2018, provides multi-signature vault solutions aimed at higher-value holders and institutions seeking practical self-custody. Bitcoin Magazine has previously covered the company’s multisig products and Neuman’s views on sovereignty and institutional adoption. The Coldcard incident has prompted renewed discussion across the industry about single-signature hardware wallets, key generation practices, and the relative merits of multisig and emerging covenant-based vault designs. Onchain data cited by Neuman suggests that, whatever the technical shortcomings of specific devices, the ability of holders to move funds independently limited the systemic impact. This post Casa CEO Nick Neuman: 233k BTC Moved To Safety After Coldcard Exploit Proves Self-Custody Resilience first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Juan Galt. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Twenty One to Become ‘More Than a Bitcoin Treasury,’ Says New CEO Bitcoin treasury Twenty One’s new CEO has reassured investors that the firm will become “more than a Bitcoin treasury” following shareholder concerns about the company. The Tuesday letter to shareholders comes after the Bitcoin treasury — the second biggest in the space — released its quarterly earnings: the company posted a net loss of $413.5 million in Q2 2026, driven almost entirely by a non-cash “change in fair value” of its BTC holdings. Bitcoin treasuries have faced a rough 2026 so far following Bitcoin’s price plunge. The leading cryptocurrency has shed about 50% of its value since it notched a all time high of $126,080 in October, hurting such companies’ stock price. https://t.co/CUhNJBoWYv — Rapha Zagury (@RaphaZagury) August 11, 2026 “Twenty One owns one of the largest Bitcoin balance sheets in the public markets. That is a real advantage, but if Twenty One is going to be worth owning, it must become more than a Bitcoin treasury,” wrote Raphael Zagury, who took the helm in July, replacing Jack Mallers. Zagury said investors had voiced concerns about the stock trading at a discount to the Bitcoin it holds, and that some thought “the build is not happening fast enough.” “That work has started: searches for key operating roles are underway,” he said to reassure investors. “Ultimately, actions, not words, will address these concerns and move the company forward.” Zagury added that the company was going to build a conservatively leveraged Bitcoin-backed lending/credit business, and support Bitcoin developers, “no-strings attached.” “I will finish with this: Twenty One is not a substitute for Bitcoin,” Zagury said. “Investors who want pure Bitcoin exposure should understand that Bitcoin itself is the cleanest expression of that view. Twenty One must earn the right to be something different: a way to own the build around Bitcoin.” Twenty One was the product of Tether, Bitfinex, Cantor Fitzgerald, and SoftBank (which now no longer is part of the project). It has the second biggest public Bitcoin treasury, according to Bitcointreasuries.net, with a total of 43,514 coins — or $2.7 billion in Bitcoin’s current price of $63,464. It debuted last year through a SPAC merger with Cantor Equity Partners, a blank check company affiliated with financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald. Bitcoin treasuries exploded last year as public companies wanting to boost their stock prices rushed to accumulate Bitcoin — and other cryptocurrencies. Following in the footsteps of software company Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy), such firms have seen their stock suffer as crypto markets have sold off since October. Even Strategy, the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin, has sold chunks of Bitcoin to create a cash buffer. Twenty One in July said it would try and create a model like Berkshire Hathaway: build and acquire high-quality operating businesses that “leverage Twenty One’s balance sheet while maintaining disciplined capital allocation at the parent company and create a long-term ownership model inspired by Berkshire Hathaway.” Twenty One’s stock (NYSE: XXI) was down over 1% over the past day on Tuesday. Year-to-date, the company’s stock is down by more than 50%. This post Twenty One to Become ‘More Than a Bitcoin Treasury,’ Says New CEO first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Bank of Russia Approves Bitcoin Trading For Retail Investors Russia’s central bank has approved Bitcoin trading for the public on the country’s crypto exchanges, according to reports. Citing the Bank of Russia’s Telegram channel, news agency Tass reported that the central bank capped cryptocurrency purchases for retail investors at 300,000 rubles ($3,632) per year. The news comes as Russia moves fast in regulating the crypto space. President Vladimir Putin has spoken about the benefits of Bitcoin and spoken about how the country has advantages when it comes to crypto mining. But using crypto to pay for goods is still prohibited in Russia. “According to the law, the selection of cryptocurrencies factors in their market capitalization, average daily trading volume, and foreign exchange pricing history, which must span at least five years for each asset,” TASS reported the Telegram channel saying. It added that other top cryptocurrencies, including Tether’s USDT stablecoin, were allowed for retail investors too. Qualified investors will be able to trade a longer list of digital assets, it continued. Qualified investors have no limits on the amount they can trade, a news report earlier this month revealed. President Putin earlier this month reportedly signed a law to regulate digital currencies and digital rights in the country. Russian regulators, lawmakers and the central bank have been working to clarify the legal status for digital assets in recent years. The Russian state still has a tight grip over what its citizens can do with Bitcoin, though. Despite Putin appearing to praise Bitcoin in the past, the use of digital assets to pay for things has been banned for years. Russian lawmakers have made an exception for international payments — but most likely as a way to dodge Western sanctions. The U.S. and European governments cut Russia off from the SWIFT payments system after it invaded Ukraine in 2022 and Russian companies have been using Bitcoin to skirt around the penalties, according to the country’s finance minister. This post Bank of Russia Approves Bitcoin Trading For Retail Investors first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Luke Dashjr Removed as Bitcoin BIP Editor Following (BIP)-110 Fork Failure Bitcoin developer Luke Dashjr, who backed the failed Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP)-110, has been removed from his position as an editor of such proposals for the development of the Bitcoin network. The decision, voted on by other Bitcoin developers, was posted on the BIP Github Sunday. The BIP Github page, separate from Bitcoin Core’s repository, is where developers can make proposals to change Bitcoin. Dashjr called the decision “an abuse of power by Core,” adding: “They have no authority to do so.” This is just an abuse of power by Core. They have no authority to do so. — Luke Dashjr (@LukeDashjr) August 10, 2026 The motion read: “Over the past several years, Luke has been at the center of many contentious disputes within the Bitcoin ecosystem, and this week a new forkcoin spun out of Bitcoin under his leadership.” It added: “More specifically, Luke was heavily involved in the creation and implementation of BIP110, the proposal that led to the fork. During that process, he also exercised his authority as a BIP Editor inconsistently with the established editorial process unfairly favoring the proposal he was involved in.” The post further added that Luke has otherwise made hardly any contributions to the day-to-day work of the BIP Editors and “exercised his editorial privileges in a manner that raises conflict-of-interest concerns.” Dashjr is one of Bitcoin Core’s earliest contributors but clashed with the network’s main developers — and wider community — after he became one of the biggest supporters of (BIP)-110, a Bitcoin softfork aimed at reducing spam on the Bitcoin network. The wider Bitcoin industry opposed the proposal and it failed spectacularly when attempting to change Bitcoin consensus rules during the weekend, picking up only a fraction of the mining power of the main Bitcoin network. Dashjr on Monday wrote on X that he was taking a sabbatical as chairman and CTO from Ocean, a mining company that supported the fork, and would dedicate his efforts to “working on Bitcoin and open-source projects to support Bitcoin.” The (BIP)-110 proposal failed to get consensus Saturday when the nodes that support the proposal broke away from the main network and produced a new, out of consensus blockchain that people had been warning about. The new chain stalled after two blocks were mined by enthusiasts and has gone nowhere since Saturday as hashpower from miners has been dedicated to the main Bitcoin network. This post Luke Dashjr Removed as Bitcoin BIP Editor Following (BIP)-110 Fork Failure first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Blockstream Debuts Swaps, Allowing Bitcoiners to Move Between Lightning and Main Network With Ease Bitcoin infrastructure company Blockstream has announced a new feature allowing users to make trustless swaps. Dubbed Blockstream Swaps, the idea is that Bitcoiners will be able to quickly move between the main chain and Lightning network. It comes after non-custodial Bitcoin swap provider Boltz suspended its service after it said attackers were finding vulnerabilities faster than its team could fix using AI. “In support of the broader Bitcoin and Liquid ecosystem, Blockstream is launching Blockstream Swaps,” Blockstream said. “This initiative was already under development to ensure a resilient suite of utility for the ecosystem, and it complements the providers already doing this work rather than replacing any one of them.” The idea, added Blockstream, is users can move funds across layers while never losing full control over their funds. To use Lightning, users will not need to run a node or channel — as is normally needed with Lightning — and can simply hold a Bitcoin or LBTC balance and let a swap convert at the moment of payment. LBTC is the native asset of the Liquid Network, a Bitcoin layer-2 sidechain created by Blockstream. “This initiative was already under development to ensure a resilient suite of utility for the ecosystem, and it complements the providers already doing this work rather than replacing any one of them,” added Blocksteam’s announcement. Boltz this month suspended its Bitcoin swap service. It said that a surge in AI-assisted attacks left it unable to continue operating safely. Crypto hacks have surged, with security experts warning that cybercriminals are using AI to search for bugs in crypto projects and then take advantage of errors auditors may have missed. This post Blockstream Debuts Swaps, Allowing Bitcoiners to Move Between Lightning and Main Network With Ease first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine BTCPay Server Offers a 3 Bitcoin Bounty for Recovery of Stolen Funds After Wallet Exploit Supporters of BTCPay Server have committed to funding a bounty of up to three Bitcoins for the recovery of funds stolen through a recently disclosed vulnerability in the open-source bitcoin payment processor, the project said in a statement. The bounty is set at 10 percent of whatever is recovered, capped at three coins in the event of a full recovery. The project even extended the offer to the attacker directly alongside anyone else holding actionable information, directing them to a dedicated security address and offering Signal or other encrypted channels on request. Hackers last week managed to extract Lightning Network admin macaroon credentials from affected BTCPay Server instances. The project published technical details and remediation guidance in a separate security advisory. “To the users who lost funds: we are sorry,” the project said in a statement. “We will examine our mistakes, but regret alone will not help affected users or secure the project. There is no time to waste. We have to learn, improve, and act quickly.” The BTCPay Server Foundation said it would donate 0.21 Bitcoins to Sparrow Wallet developer Craig Raw and a further 0.21 Bitcoins to the Bitcoin Red Team fund in recognition of their responsible disclosure of the vulnerability. Separately, the project said it has been contacted by security teams at exchanges, blockchain analytics firms and law enforcement agencies offering assistance in tracking the stolen coins. Affected users who have not yet come forward are being asked to share on-chain addresses and transaction details, and to file reports with local authorities and any exchange or service where the funds surface. Individual reports, the project said, help preserve records and establish a chain of evidence that improves the odds of funds being frozen. The project added that improving AI models are making it faster and cheaper to comb large codebases for weaknesses, shifting the balance toward attackers, and that Bitcoin projects are feeling it first because they are unusually valuable targets. This post BTCPay Server Offers a 3 Bitcoin Bounty for Recovery of Stolen Funds After Wallet Exploit first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Bitcoin Exchange-Traded Funds See Spike In Inflows Following Huge Hack American Bitcoin exchange-traded funds have had their biggest weekly inflow since April, taking in $850 million last week, according to Bloomberg figures. The major U.S. funds managed by BlackRock, Fidelity, Grayscale, Morgan Stanley and others have received the cash the week after hackers targeted Coinkite’s popular Coldcard product. Hackers started stealing millions in Bitcoin from Coldcard wallets after discovering a vulnerability in the product’s software. Some estimates put the amount of Bitcoin lost now at over $130 million. JUST IN: BlackRock tells Bloomberg they've "seen consistently" that Bitcoin ETF investors are buying and holding BTC "long term" on this dip "That is being exhibited through this downturn." HODL pic.twitter.com/9D0j9uLJwu — Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) August 10, 2026 The incident has rattled the BTC community that typically praises cold storage solutions. Speaking on Bloomberg’s ETF IQ show on Monday, Robert Mitchnick, global head of digital assets at BlackRock, said that since the ETFs’ approval in 2024, investors have wanted a “very simple turnkey trusted vehicle and not have to worry about all the unique elements of Bitcoin and crypto security that generally custody otherwise would require of an investor.” Speaking about the Coldcard hack, he added: “What’s also important to recognize is that that is not a breach of Bitcoin or any other crypto protocol — those are individual security mismanagement issues that happen from various individuals or providers.” It isn’t clear whether investors are rotating out of cold storage into the ETFs since the hack but the funds have seen a spike in trading action. Bitcoin’s price has typically done well when investors have thrown cash at the products but the leading cryptocurrency is now flat over a seven-day period, priced at $63,861. BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust took most of last week’s inflows but other funds managed by Morgan Stanley and Fidelity also experienced trading action. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in 2024 approved the slew of Bitcoin investment funds which went on to have the most successful launch in the history of ETFs. Investors previously put off from buying Bitcoin due to the complexities of cold storage and private keys can now buy shares that trade on stock exchanges that track the price of Bitcoin. The ETFs — managed by other top Wall Street fund managers — currently manage nearly $80 billion in assets, according to Coinglass data. This post Bitcoin Exchange-Traded Funds See Spike In Inflows Following Huge Hack first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine TD Cowen Gives Crypto Clarity Act a 25% Chance of Passing This Fall Investment bank TD Securities has said that the long-awaited crypto Clarity Act has a slim chance of getting passed in a Monday note, citing last week’s delay and potential stalling from the Democrats. The bank said that now the bill won’t be passed before the summer, it only has a 25% of getting passed in September. Lawmakers were hoping a crucial vote on the long-awaited crypto market structure bill was to go ahead before a five-week recess but news dropped last week that there was a delay and now the Senate will vote on the bill in September. “The bill is not dead, but the path forward is harder,” the bank said. “We assign a 75% probability that Clarity fails to become law this fall.” TD Cowen said one likely outcome was for cloture to pass initially in September but then for Republicans to block Democratic amendments on the ethics and AML sections, leading Democrats to sink the second cloture vote. It added that it was also likely no cloture vote ever happens. Cloture is the Senate’s procedural tool for ending debate on a bill so it can move to a final vote. News dropped last week a vote on the bill would have to wait until lawmakers return from August recess. Bipartisan work has gone into the Clarity Act, which was passed by the House of Representatives last year, but some Republicans have accused Democrats of stalling the bill. The bill, if passed, would be a federal rulebook for U.S. cryptocurrency markets. The latest draft of the Clarity Act contains language — drafted by Democrats and Republicans — banning government officials from promoting or making money from crypto. It started circulating in July. Still, Democrats like Senator Elizabeth Warren, who has from the beginning criticized the Clarity Act, have claimed that new legislation will benefit the president and his family. Major financial institutions — not just crypto companies — have backed the bill, including Goldman Sachs and Fidelity, as well as law enforcement groups. This post TD Cowen Gives Crypto Clarity Act a 25% Chance of Passing This Fall first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Strategy Sells Bitcoin Again For Cash Buffer, STRC Buyback Bitcoin treasury company Strategy on Monday announced that it again sold Bitcoin last week, and used the cash to buy back its preferred stock. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Nasdaq-listed company said it sold 1,690 coins for $108.6 million, bringing its holdings to 840,447 coins, down from 842,138 it had the week before. The cash, Strategy said, went to buying 1,152,020 STRC shares worth $109 million as part of a buyback program. STRC in June fell far below the $100 stated amount. Strategy increased its USD Reserve by $650M and repurchased $109M of $STRC. This increased USD Duration by 143 days to 2.7 yrs and tightened STRC's BTC Credit by 10 bps. As of 8/9/26, we hold ₿840,447 in our BTC Reserve and $4.65B in our USD Reserve. $MSTR… — Michael Saylor (@saylor) August 10, 2026 Strategy, which went from being an enterprise software company to buying Bitcoin in 2020, hasn’t bought any Bitcoin since June. The company has reassured investors that selling Bitcoin is just part of its plan to grow its cash buffer. Strategy said Monday that it now holds $4.65 billion in cash. Strategy’s stock (Nasdaq: MSTR) was trading nearly 3% lower on Monday. The stock has taken a hit since the price of Bitcoin nosedived last year. Investors buy MSTR to get amplified exposure to the biggest digital asset. But now, as Bitcoin is nearly 50% below its October record, MSTR is down nearly 80% from the all-time high it notched last year. Despite the sale, Strategy has maintained that its long-term posture toward Bitcoin hasn’t changed. 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 buying Bitcoin and remains by far the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin in the world. Strategy’s approach spawned a wave of copycat companies that have since adopted similar crypto-treasury strategies of their own. The company maintains that its long-term posture toward Bitcoin is still the same. CEO Phong Le he isn’t worried about the current bear market, and that the company plans to remain a long-term buyer of Bitcoin despite its recent sales. This post Strategy Sells Bitcoin Again For Cash Buffer, STRC Buyback first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст