Bitcoin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bitcoin Magazine Bitcoin Treasury Strategy Posts $8.2B Loss As BTC Price Suffered Bitcoin treasury company Strategy reported a loss of $8.22 billion for the second quarter of 2026 thanks to the falling price of the leading cryptocurrency. In its quarterly report, Nasdaq-listed Strategy (MSTR) — formerly MicroStrategy — put the loss down to the Bitcoin price crash, even as the company continued raising capital, buying more Bitcoin and paying down debt. In the same period of 2025, Strategy reported a net income of $10.02 billion. “In the second quarter of 2026, Strategy strengthened its balance sheet while navigating a meaningful Bitcoin price decline,” Strategy CEO and President Phong Le said in a statement. Chairman and the architect behind the software company’s Bitcoin-buying masterplan, Michael Saylor, added: “In the midst of this phase of muted Bitcoin sentiment and market skepticism, we continue to evolve our business model and establish digital credit as a new asset class.” Bitcoin’s price is down nearly 50% from the all-time high of $126,080 it notched in October 2025. The leading cryptocurrency was recently priced at $64,745, down 26% year-to-date. Over the quarter, the Tysons, Virginia-based company said it increased its Bitcoin holdings by 11%. Strategy now holds 843,775 Bitcoins worth $54.6 billion at today’s prices. Strategy for the past five weeks had paused its Bitcoin buys, instead focusing on putting more cash on its balance sheet. Investors buy Strategy’s stock to get leveraged exposure to Bitcoin. But when the price of the asset dips, MSTR also suffers. MSTR stock is currently down over 80% from its 2024 peak of over $500 per share. The company has other offerings, including STRC, a product that pays investors a dividend. This post Bitcoin Treasury Strategy Posts $8.2B Loss As BTC Price Suffered first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Legendary Investor Ray Dalio Still Holds Bitcoin — But Only 1% of His Portfolio Legendary investor Ray Dalio still only holds 1% of his portfolio in Bitcoin — and prefers gold instead. Speaking on a Thursday episode of the Diary of a CEO podcast, the Bridgewater Associates founder explained that while there are different types of money, and Bitcoin was one of them, gold was a better investment. Dalio has gone from saying he wouldn’t invest in Bitcoin over the years to finally admitting it was in his portfolio. “[Bitcoin] is a type of money that can’t be printed, but there are technologies that can hurt it — in other words, if there’s quantum computing,” he said. “And it can be monitored by governments and so on, and it could be taxed. And digital currencies are somewhat similar.” Dalio added that Bitcoin only makes up 1% of his portfolio. “I prefer that — I’m pointing to the gold bars here — rather than the Bitcoin,” he added on the show. Last year, Dalio also admitted that Bitcoin only made up 1% of his investments. This isn’t the first time Dalio has criticized Bitcoin and praised gold: Back in 2020, the billionaire investor said that the cryptocurrency was too volatile to use as money but said everyone should have some gold in their portfolio. Dalio continued that governments could crack down on Bitcoin. “When the governments say I don’t want it, they have the power, therefore, to do whatever they want with it, and central banks will not own any significant amount of that because of the reason I said: they want their transactions to be private and in their control.” While Dalio still takes a cautious approach to Bitcoin buying, over the years, the asset has become more widely accepted among traditional investors and even Wall Street heavyweights — including BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager. BlackRock CEO Larry Fink in recent years has called Bitcoin an “international asset” and a way of “digitizing gold.” This post Legendary Investor Ray Dalio Still Holds Bitcoin — But Only 1% of His Portfolio first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent Urges Lawmakers to Vote on Clarity Act, Quotes Satoshi Nakamoto U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Thursday became the latest major figure to support the crypto Clarity Act — and quoted Satoshi Nakamoto while doing it. Writing on X, the politician urged the Senate “vote NOW on this landmark legislation,” and blasted Democrats — focusing on Elizabeth Warren — for holding back the bill. Lawmakers are hoping the Clarity Act gets passed before Congress departs for August recess. While the bill has been drafted bipartisanly, some Democrats are unhappy with the current version. JUST IN: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says Senate Democrats are stalling the Clarity Act: “The Senate needs to vote NOW on this landmark legislation.” "I believe Satoshi once said it best: If you don’t believe me or don’t get it, I don’t have time to try to convince you,… pic.twitter.com/9gQh45N31h — Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) July 30, 2026 “The truth is that Senate Democrats are afraid to advance the Clarity Act as they fear Senator Warren and the ‘Anti-Crypto Army’ she once promised to build,” wrote Bessent. He added: “Will Senate Democrats be on the side of American Exceptionalism, or will they opt to cede American leadership of a global industry for fear of the bespectacled squirrel’s Left flank?” “America will lead or America won’t. It’s not more complicated than that. I believe Satoshi once said it best: ‘If you don’t believe me or don’t get it, I don’t have time to try to convince you, sorry.'” Democrat Senator Warren has long criticized the crypto industry. Her attacks on the space have become fiercer following President Donald Trump’s support for all things crypto. Lawmakers are currently mulling over a new draft of the Clarity Act. A number of major nonprofits and financial institutions have backed the bill, which includes amendments addressing ethics, but some Democrats are still unhappy with how it is worded. Warren last week blasted the bill, claiming it would “make it easier for criminals to move money” and that “it does not stop Donald Trump from cashing in on his presidency.” President Trump campaigned on a ticket to help the crypto industry and received major backing from digital asset entrepreneurs. 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. US banking representatives, regulators and crypto bigwigs have been meeting at the White House to work on the Clarity Act since last year. If approved, it would set in stone crypto regulation in the world’s largest economy. This post Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent Urges Lawmakers to Vote on Clarity Act, Quotes Satoshi Nakamoto first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Professional Law Enforcement Group Backs Crypto’s CLARITY Act, Adding Pressure Before August Recess More support has been thrown behind the Clarity Act as lawmakers rush to get the long-awaited bill over the line. This time from the Major Cities Chiefs Association. The nonprofit — made up of police chiefs from major U.S. cities — said Thursday that it was happy with how the bill addresses financial crime. Lawmakers are hoping the Clarity Act gets passed before Congress departs for August recess. While the bill has been drafted bipartisanly, some Democrats are unhappy with the current version. JUST IN: Pro organization of police executives representing the largest cities in the U.S. now officially endorse the passage of the Clarity Act: pic.twitter.com/r6YnaTrrW5 — Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) July 30, 2026 “The most recent changes to the legislation have earned MCCA’s support,” a letter from the organization, first posted on X by Semafor White House reporter Eleanor Mueller, reads. “Critically, the bill now includes a new title with additional law enforcement provisions,” it continued, adding that the latest update “represents a meaningful step toward improving the ability of law enforcement to investigate financial crimes involving digital assets.” Last week, The National Fraternal Order of Police said it supported the bill. And Democratic Senator Catherine Cortez Masto this week sent some suggested changes to the bill, along with two law enforcement groups, that she said they felt “good” about. Major financial institutions, lawmakers and companies have said they support the latest draft of the new bill, but a group of Democrats last week said in a statement that the legislation in its current form falls short. Despite being passed in the house of representatives last year with strong bipartisan support, the Clarity Act has been in a deadlock for much of 2026. The banking lobby raised concerns over stablecoin yield and some lawmakers have said improvements need to be made surrounding ethics. An updated bill of the Clarity Act was introduced last week that addressed some of these concerns — banning government officials and their families from issuing or promoting crypto. Democrats — and some Republicans — have criticized President Trump’s crypto business interests, with some alleging conflicts of interest as his family has made money from meme coins and the decentralized finance protocol, World Liberty Financial. Republicans are hoping to gain bipartisan support for the bill this week to advance the legislation. The long-awaited bill aims to create a regulatory framework for the cryptocurrency market in the U.S. This post Professional Law Enforcement Group Backs Crypto’s CLARITY Act, Adding Pressure Before August Recess first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine NYSE-Listed AI Company Taps Lightning Network to Pay Employees In Bitcoin Publicly traded AI operating system Vida Global (NYSE American: VIDA) has said it has started paying employees in Bitcoin using the Lightning network — but in a way where the company does not have the leading crypto on its balance sheet. The Austin, Texas-based company said Thursday that after a worker in Argentina asked to be paid in Bitcoin, the firm tapped Bitcoin infrastructure company Voltage to make the transaction. But the company is not keeping Bitcoin on its books: it simply sends the cash amount via Voltage’s platform, the employees receive payment in Bitcoin, and Vida’s balance sheet remains in dollars. “Vida has a global team, including team members in Argentina who prefer to be paid in Bitcoin because of challenges with their local currency,” Vida CEO Lyle Pratt said. “Voltage facilitates the Bitcoin payments, and we settle the balance in U.S. dollars at the end of the month, just like a standard vendor invoice. It has made offering Bitcoin payments remarkably simple for both our team and our finance operations.” Pratt added the setup meets employee needs without adding crypto complexity to accounting. Voltage CEO Graham Krizek said it was solving a mismatch between “global by default” AI companies and payment rails that haven’t kept up. “Their team members get paid in seconds in the money they actually want, and their finance team never touches crypto,” he said. “When a public company runs part of its team compensation on Bitcoin rails and the books stay boring, that’s the point.” Lightning is another network that skirts transactions around the main chain, cutting costs and increasing speed — originally designed so people could use Bitcoin for daily purchases. Bitcoin maxis like Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey have since integrated the network into their businesses, payments platform, Cash App and his PoS terminals, Square. This post NYSE-Listed AI Company Taps Lightning Network to Pay Employees In Bitcoin first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Spanish Bank Banco Santander Reveals $4.3M Bitcoin Investment Spain’s largest bank, Banco Santander, has revealed a $4.3 million investment in Bitcoin. According to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, the Madrid-based bank bought the exposure via BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust — a total of 129,615 shares. The filing is the latest example of a traditional institution seeking exposure to the biggest cryptocurrency by market cap. JUST IN: Spain's largest bank, Banco Santander, reports owning $4.3 million in spot Bitcoin ETFs pic.twitter.com/HfbuaTc3Fh — Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) July 30, 2026 Over the past year, Santander’s digital bank, Openbank, has allowed customers to buy Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies and began a more friendly approach to marketing digital assets to customers. BlackRock’s Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) allows investors to buy exposure to Bitcoin without having to own and store the digital coin directly. The shares trade on a stock exchange and can be bought quickly and easily via a brokerage account. BlackRock’s IBIT is the most successful crypto ETF: The fund has received more inflows than any other crypto ETF, currently holding $46.9 billion in assets under management, according to its website. Other major institutions have bought exposure to Bitcoin via the ETFs after their 2024 approval. A large number of investors were previously put off by having to deal with things like storage and private keys but once the SEC approved a slew of ETFs in 2024, new capital entered the space. The crypto ETF market is already a crowded one, with popular products by top asset managers BlackRock, Fidelity, and bank Morgan Stanley already on the market. U.S. Bitcoin funds currently manage over $83 billion in assets, according to CoinGlass data. This post Spanish Bank Banco Santander Reveals $4.3M Bitcoin Investment first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Bitchat Mesh App Defies India Cybercrime Notice After Protesters Use It During Network Restrictions Bitchat, Jack Dorsey’s censorship-resistant, Bluetooth-enabled messaging app, has gone viral again, this time due to the Indian Government trying to get it banned from GitHub. In this latest round of authoritarian measures versus decentralized technologies, Bitchat has won. In July 2025, Jack Dorsey announced a new messaging application he described as a weekend project. The app, called Bitchat, was designed to work without internet access, phone numbers, user accounts, or central servers. It relied instead on Bluetooth mesh networks for local communication and the Nostr protocol for wider reach. A year later, that same application became the subject of a formal takedown request from India’s cybercrime authorities during a period of student protests. The episode offers a clear illustration of how cypherpunk ideas—building systems that function without permission from intermediaries—continue to shape tools used in moments of political tension. Calle, one of the main developers behind the Android version of the app, took the statements from the Indian government as a positive review of Bitchat’s effectiveness, tweeting: “India forces GitHub to take down Bitchat ‘Bitchat enables anonymous communication without mandatory user registration, phone number verification, or centralized logging of communications. The technical architecture of the application significantly impedes interception, attribution, and investigation by law enforcement agencies.’ – Government of India” What Bitchat Is Bitchat is a peer-to-peer encrypted messaging application. Devices form local mesh networks over Bluetooth, automatically discovering nearby peers and relaying messages across multiple hops. When internet connectivity is available, the app can fall back to Nostr relays. Users can join public local channels, send private end-to-end encrypted messages, and access location-based channels organized by geographic zones. The application requires no registration and includes a panic feature that clears stored data. The code is open source, with the primary repositories hosted under the permissionlesstech organization on GitHub. The iOS version is available on the App Store; the Android version is on Google Play and distributed via GitHub releases, as well as many other app stores like Nostr’s Zapstore. Recent updates added the ability for Android devices to share the installation file directly with nearby phones over Wi-Fi or Nearby Share, letting new users join the mesh easily without the need for internet access. Key figures associated with the project include Jack Dorsey and open-source developer Calle, known for work on Cashu ecash. Bitcoin Magazine has previously noted experimental demonstrations of offline Bitcoin-related payments moving across the same mesh. Earlier Deployments Bitchat first saw significant real-world use during periods of government-restricted connectivity. In September 2025, during unrest in Nepal, the app recorded nearly 50,000 downloads from that country in a single day, according to data shared by Calle and reported by Bitcoin Magazine. Similar spikes occurred during blackouts in other regions. In January 2026, Iranian users turned to Bitchat and a localized fork during internet restrictions, as covered in Bitcoin Magazine. These earlier cases established a pattern: when conventional mobile networks or social platforms become unreliable or restricted, tools that operate independently of those networks see rapid adoption. The India Events In May 2026, India’s National Eligibility Entrance Test (NEET-UG) for medical school admissions was canceled after evidence of a significant leak of the test’s questions. The controversy, involving millions of candidates, undermined the fairness of the exam and was linked to student suicides, contributing to the growth of a youth-led satirical movement known as the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP). Protests centered on demands for accountability from Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and broader reforms to the examination system. By mid-July, demonstrators had gathered at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi and attempted marches toward Parliament. Reports indicated blackouts on mobile data or internet access in areas around the protests. On 24 July 2026, the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (I4C), issued a notice directing GitHub to restrict access to three Bitchat repositories within three hours. The notice cited the application’s ability to function during network restrictions and internet shutdowns, arguing that this architecture could impede lawful interception and attribution. On 24 July, Dorsey posted the notice on X with the statement: “the government of India does not like technologies like bitchat and wants it taken down.” Market data from Sensor Tower, according to TechCrunch, reported across multiple outlets, showed that India accounted for approximately 85 percent of the app’s global downloads between 17 and 23 July, with more than 91,000 downloads in India over five days and daily active users exceeding 330,000 at the peak. The GitHub repositories remained accessible in the immediate aftermath, despite the takedown attempt by the Indian government. Developers and users circulated mirrors, including on decentralized platforms such as Radicle. The application itself continued to function on devices that already had it installed, and the offline file-sharing feature reduced reliance on app stores or GitHub for further distribution. Pradhan resigned on 25 July. Historical Context The use of messaging tools during protests is not new, nor is Dorsey’s role in support of technologies useful during tense democratic protests. During the Arab Spring, platforms such as Twitter and Facebook were widely credited with helping coordinate demonstrations and amplify information, leading some observers to describe the events as “Twitter revolutions” or “Facebook revolutions.” Those centralized services, however, remained dependent on internet access and corporate intermediaries that could be pressured or blocked and in some cases were. A closer technological predecessor appeared in 2014 during Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement. Protesters downloaded FireChat, a mesh-networking application that allowed devices to communicate directly over Bluetooth or Wi-Fi without internet. The app saw hundreds of thousands of downloads and millions of chat sessions in a short period as mobile networks became congested or as users prepared for possible disruptions. Bitchat continues this line of development, though more closely integrated with Bitcoin-associated technologies. It combines mesh networking with an open protocol (Nostr), stronger cryptographic defaults, and fully open-source code. The response to the Indian GitHub notice, which saw rapid mirroring and peer-to-peer distribution of the application itself, illustrates a further step: the tool is no longer dependent on a single company or platform for its survival; once it has been distributed, it self-replicates. Cypherpunk Principles in Practice In 1993, Eric Hughes published A Cypherpunk’s Manifesto. It opens with the statement: “Privacy is necessary for an open society in the electronic age.” The manifesto argues that individuals cannot rely on governments or corporations to protect privacy and that the practical response is to write and deploy code that makes surveillance and control more difficult. Bitchat is an application of that approach to communication. It does not require user information to function; identities are purely based on cryptography. Users do not need to trust a central operator. It continues to function when conventional infrastructure is restricted. When an intermediary such as GitHub is asked to remove the source code, the popularity and the offline distribution methods of the project limited the effectiveness of the request. This does not make the technology inherently aligned with any particular political outcome, but this is now the third time it goes viral in the context of democratic demonstrations as a solution to government-driven internet censorship. From FireChat in Hong Kong to Bitchat in Nepal, Iran, and now India, the same underlying demand appears: communication that does not disappear when the network does. Bitchat servers that demand by giving people tools to communicate and coordinate without centralized infrastructure. This post Bitchat Mesh App Defies India Cybercrime Notice After Protesters Use It During Network Restrictions first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Juan Galt. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Republican Senator Cynthia Lummis Slams Democrat Lawmakers For Dragging Their Feet Over Clarity Act Pro-crypto Senator Cynthia Lummis on Wednesday slammed Democrats for holding back the Clarity Act. Speaking on the Senate floor, Senator Lummis, of Wyoming, spoke of the bipartisan work that had gone into the bill — but questioned why it was stalling. Lawmakers are hoping the Clarity Act gets passed before Congress departs for August recess. While the bill has been drafted bipartisanly, some Democrats are unhappy with the current version. JUST IN: Republican Senator Cynthia Lummis calls out the Democrats for holding up the Clarity Act: "After nearly 11 months of giving almost everything asked of us, I genuinely don't know what else my Democrat colleagues need before we act." pic.twitter.com/1SMzfkNVfQ — Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) July 29, 2026 “This is a very good bill: good for the country, good for consumers, and good for the people we all represent on both sides of this aisle,” said Senator Lummis. “And after 11 months of giving nearly everything that was asked of us, I am genuinely struggling to understand what else my colleagues across the aisle think it needs before we act.” Major financial institutions, lawmakers and companies have thrown their weight behind the new bill, but a group of Democrats last week said in a statement that the bill in its current form falls short. A number of lawmakers are hoping the bill gets passed before Congress departs for August recess. Despite being passed in the house of representatives last year with strong bipartisan support, the Clarity Act has been in a deadlock for much of 2026, partially the banking lobby raised concerns over stablecoin yield. An updated bill of the Clarity Act was introduced last week that addressed ethics concerns — banning government officials and their families from issuing or promoting crypto. Republicans are hoping to gain bipartisan support for the bill this week to advance the legislation. If passed, the long-awaited bill would create a regulatory framework for the cryptocurrency market. Conservative Lummis earned the name “Bitcoin Senator” over the years for her pro-crypto approach on Capitol Hill. The 71-year-old senator has admitted owning the leading cryptocurrency since 2013 and has been vital in pro-crypto legislation, including by helping draft the Bitcoin Act for a Bitcoin strategic reserve, and co-sponsoring the 2025’s GENIUS Act to regulate stablecoins. This post Republican Senator Cynthia Lummis Slams Democrat Lawmakers For Dragging Their Feet Over Clarity Act first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Bitcoin Barely Budges as Fed Keeps Interest Rates Unchanged Bitcoin was trading higher on Wednesday — but only slightly — after the Federal Reserve decided to keep interest rates still. The leading cryptocurrency was recently priced at close to $64,402 per coin, after moving up by nearly 1% in the hour following the announcement. As expected, the U.S. central bank left the federal funds rate in the 3.50%-3.75% range. Three of the 12 members of the policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee “preferred” a quarter-percentage-point hike at this meeting. BREAKING: Federal Reserve officially leaves interest rates unchanged at 3.5-3.75%. pic.twitter.com/mkMnSee2ou — Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) July 29, 2026 Speaking to the press following the announcement, the Fed’s new Chair, Kevin Warsh, revealed little about where the central bank would go next. “The Fed’s on the case,” he said. “I’ve been heartened by the reception I’ve received. We’re committed as ever to deliver.” He added that the July rate decision was “a rigorous review of the economic situation.” “I wouldn’t characterize what we did as anything like a pause,” he said. “I would characterize what we did as a rigorous review of the economic situation. I would characterize what we did as a review of the big, hard questions.” Warsh, who took over in May, has said he has “no tolerance” for inflation that has been running above the central bank’s target for more than five years. Bitcoin has typically performed well in a low-interest rate environment, and crypto investors have been hoping the Federal Reserve would cut rates to boost digital assets. President Donald Trump since taking office has pushed for lower interest rates, and clashed with ex-Fed chair Jerome Powell over the matter. For now, Warsh doesn’t seem like he’ll be going in that direction as sticky inflation continues to bother Americans. The Federal Reserve started aggressively raising rates in 2022 in a bid to control 40-year-high inflation spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic. Bitcoin was hit by the tightening. Then, in 2024, the central bank repeatedly cut rates. It has been hesitant to lower them since the end of 2025. This post Bitcoin Barely Budges as Fed Keeps Interest Rates Unchanged first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст

Bitcoin Magazine Democratic Senator Backs Clarity Act — With Proposed Law Enforcement Changes Included: Report Bipartisan work on the long-awaited Clarity Act continues after Democratic senator Catherine Cortez Masto said that she, along with two law enforcement groups, are feeling “good” about proposed changes to the bill, according to a news report. Along with the National Association of Assistant U.S. Attorneys and the National District Attorneys Association, Cortez backed changes to the bill and said they felt positive about “the chance to resolve this issue once and for all,” according to a POLITICO report. The changes were sent to the White House. A number of lawmakers are hoping the Clarity Act — which would set in stone crypto regulation in the U.S. — gets passed before Congress departs for August recess. But some sticking points remain — particularly with Democrats. JUST IN: Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto backs the new CLARITY ACT proposal sent to the White House saying: "We feel good about the chance to resolve this issue once and for all" – POLITICO pic.twitter.com/Bn3b7dcz8e — Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) July 29, 2026 According to the news report, the changes proposed by the law enforcement groups refer to a small section of the bill which seeks to protect some crypto software developers and firms from being prosecuted for illicit activity committed by others on platforms they create. A new version of the Clarity Act has been circulating amongst lawmakers since last week; it has changes regarding ethics and bans officials and their families from issuing or promoting crypto — something lawmakers previously had issue with. The Clarity Act was passed last year by the House of Representatives but has been in deadlock in 2026 while regulators and banking chiefs hash out a new version of the bill. The banking lobby has raised concerns over stablecoins and the yield they would potentially pay customers and some Democrats think the bill falls short regarding ethical issues. Still, the bill has been worked on by both Republicans and Democrats — despite crypto legislation being something pushed by pro-crypto President Donald Trump. Major institutions, including Fidelity and Goldman Sachs, as well as crypto lobby groups and politicians, have said the revised bill works in its current form. This post Democratic Senator Backs Clarity Act — With Proposed Law Enforcement Changes Included: Report first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo. Переглянути повний текст