Track market-moving stories before they get noisy

Publicly listed / traded Bitcoin mining companies have reportedly reduced their dedicated computational capacity more rapidly than the broader network, as a growing number shift electricity and data-center resources toward artificial intelligence and high-performance computing applications.

This development signals that many operators are prioritizing more predictable income streams over traditional cryptocurrency production.

Three months earlier, analysis had shown a redistribution of power within the sector.

Firms including Core Scientific, IREN, Cipher Digital, TeraWulf, and Keel Infrastructure were scaling back Bitcoin operations, while Bitdeer, MARA, Riot Platforms, and American Bitcoin absorbed much of the displaced share, keeping the overall public cohort roughly stable. Second-quarter results, however, indicate that this equilibrium is eroding.

Operators continuing to reduce exposure kept decommissioning equipment, yet fewer peers expanded sufficiently to offset the losses.

At the same time, colocation and related revenues climbed markedly among those furthest advanced in the transition.Core Scientific recorded $136.7 million in colocation income during the second quarter—nearly five times its $27.5 million from Bitcoin mining—accounting for 83 percent of total sales, up from 67 percent in the prior quarter.

TeraWulf followed a parallel path, with high-performance computing lease revenue reaching $31.9 million, or 71 percent of overall revenue, against $12.8 million from mining.

For these two companies, non-mining activities have already surpassed Bitcoin production as the primary revenue driver.

Elsewhere in the sector the shift remains less advanced: Riot Platforms reported $23.2 million in data-center revenue versus $113.7 million from mining, while Bitdeer generated $14 million from AI cloud services compared with $197.1 million from mining-related operations.

Hut 8 and MARA showed smaller contributions from compute services, and Cipher and Keel Infrastructure had not yet begun recognizing high-performance computing revenue.

Drawing on an expanded set of public miners and updated network data, TheEnergyMag calculates that the tracked cohort delivered a combined realized hashrate of 368.3 EH/s in the fourth quarter of 2025, 344.4 EH/s in the first quarter of 2026, and 319.0 EH/s in the second quarter—a 13.4 percent decline over six months.

The Bitcoin network’s quarterly average fell from 1,071 EH/s to 993 EH/s and then to 957 EH/s, a 10.6 percent reduction.

Public companies therefore contracted faster than the network as a whole.

In the first quarter, expansion by a few operators largely masked the scale of shutdowns elsewhere; by the second quarter those offsets proved insufficient.

Bitdeer provided the largest counterweight, increasing its realized hashrate 44 percent from the fourth quarter to the second quarter to reach 63.0 EH/s.

Excluding Bitdeer, the remaining cohort’s realized hashrate declined 21.2 percent, from 324.6 EH/s to 255.9 EH/s.

Bitdeer’s growth stemmed from its proprietary SEALMINER production line; by June the company reported 73 EH/s of self-mining capacity and 15.9 EH/s of co-mining capacity, producing 990 Bitcoin in the month—388 percent more than a year earlier.

MARA and American Bitcoin also continued to expand, yet their gains could not fully compensate for reductions at Cango, Cipher, Keel, Core Scientific, TeraWulf, and IREN.Cango illustrates the speed of the economic shift.

After entering Bitcoin mining in late 2024 and deploying 50 EH/s during 2025, the firm began decommissioning less efficient machines, leasing hashrate, and relocating capacity to lower-cost regions.

Its realized hashrate dropped from 44.8 EH/s in the fourth quarter of 2025 to 31.3 EH/s in the first quarter; estimates place second-quarter capacity near 16.5 EH/s—a 63 percent reduction in six months.

Keel Infrastructure advanced further, completing the decommissioning of all US Bitcoin mining operations in the second quarter ahead of data-center construction, while Canadian mining continues during the phased transition.

Replacement revenue has yet to materialize fully.Viewed over a longer horizon, the second-quarter data underscores the unwinding of the post-China expansion cycle.

China’s 2021 mining ban temporarily removed roughly half the network’s computing power, with hashrate bottoming at 57.5 EH/s in June 2021 before miners relocated and the network recovered by December.

The United States became the dominant hub, prompting an institutional build-out in which public miners raised capital, secured power sites, and ordered successive generations of ASICs, eventually driving the network past one zettahash per second.

Only one halving has occurred since that expansion.

Now, machines and electrical infrastructure accumulated during the post-China race are being idled, impaired, or depreciated so that power can be reassigned to GPUs.

The industry expanded at substantial cost, only for some of its most prominent operators to begin dismantling capacity after a single halving cycle. Unlike the China ban, the present contraction lacks a single dramatic catalyst; it arises from the combination of weak mining economics and a competing demand for capital and electricity.

58 min ago

2 min read

The Kremlin in Moscow (Artem Beliaikin/Unsplash)Summary

Moscow and parts of Kursk banned crypto mining and pool participation through Dec. 31, 2032, under government decree No. 936 to preserve power grid stability.The Energy Ministry enacted the year-round restriction to mitigate power-capacity shortages as energy-intensive mining facilities continue to strain regional grids.This decision follows Russia's legalization of registered mining in 2024 and subsequent bans in 10 other regions due to rising electricity demand.Crypto mining was banned in Moscow, the surrounding Moscow Region and parts of Kursk, with the restrictions set to run through Dec. 31, 2032.

The measure, established under government decree No. 936, also prohibits participation in crypto mining pools. The decree was signed on July 25 and published on July 31, local media reports.

Russia as a whole accounted for an estimated 175 exahashes per second, or 16.4% of Bitcoin’s global computing power, in the first quarter, according to Luxor’s Hashrate Index. That placed it second behind the U.S., although it’s unclear what capacity was located in the newly restricted region.

The country’s Energy Ministry said a year-round restriction was needed to reduce the risk of power-capacity shortages as energy-intensive mining facilities connect to regional grids. Mining currently consumes roughly 1 gigawatt in the Moscow power system, while the region’s data-center capacity could reach 3.6 GW, or 17% of peak demand, by 2032, Interfax reported after the decree was first signed.

Mining is also linked to the country’s Western sanctions.

Russian companies had been using domestically mined bitcoin in international payments after legal changes designed to counter Western restrictions, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said in December 2024.

Legislation passed by parliament in July maintained Russia’s ban on domestic crypto payments but preserved exceptions for foreign-trade settlements and transactions involving mined cryptocurrency, keeping the mechanism available as sanctions restrict conventional payment channels.

Adding to that, the U.S. Treasury sanctioned BitRiver and 10 subsidiaries in 2022, saying Russian mining companies helped the country monetize its energy resources and could offset the impact of sanctions.

Russia legalized registered crypto mining back in 2024, before banning the activity in 10 regions through March 2031, citing electricity demand. Year-round restrictions were later extended to southern Irkutsk and most areas of Buryatia and Zabaykalsky Krai.

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Building the Zcash Machine: Tachyon and Quantum Readiness

Building the Zcash Machine: Tachyon and Quantum Readiness

Zcash’s Tachyon upgrade aims to scale shielded payments, improve quantum readiness, and test whether its funding, security, and governance can hold.

Jun 30, 2026

Zcash’s Tachyon upgrade aims to scale shielded payments, improve quantum readiness, and test whether its funding, security, and governance can hold.

Why it matters:

Zcash’s Tachyon upgrade aims to scale shielded payments, improve quantum readiness, and test whether its funding, security, and governance can hold.

According to monitoring by Onchain Lens, Jump Crypto has continued transferring Bitcoin (BTC) to Binance this week, with total deposits reaching around 1,560 BTC valued at approximately $99.2 million, suspected to be for a sale operation. The latest data shows Jump Crypto transferred an additional 286.83 BTC to Binance just two hours ago, worth roughly $18.01 million. As of now, Jump Crypto’s wallet still holds around 1,410 BTC valued at about $88.58 million. The market will continue to track its subsequent transfers and changes in holdings.

Relevant content

ABFinance officially announced it will shut down in approximately five months and is currently initiating an orderly liquidation.

Crypto finance platform ABFinance, founded by former Bybit co-CEO Helen Liu, announced it will not proceed with its planned launch and is now in the process of orderly shutdown. ABFinance stated on social media that it thanks all team members, community users, and partners involved in its development, adding: "Thank you for your trust, support, and belief along the way." In March this year, after leaving Bybit, Helen Liu announced the launch of her startup ABFinance, which aimed to build a one-stop financial platform connecting fiat and crypto assets, integrating functions such as deposits, yields, trading, and payments, and emphasized that it would be built under the U.S. compliance license framework from day one. According to prior reports, Bybit announced that Helen Liu would step down on April 30, 2026, to embark on her personal entrepreneurial journey. However, just about five months after ABFinance unveiled its project plan, the platform announced it would halt its launch and enter the shutdown process. The specific reason for the shutdown has not been disclosed by officials so far.

17 minutes ago

Morgan Stanley’s holdings of Circle surged nearly sixfold, but the firm cut its rating on the crypto firm to "Underweight" and lowered its target price to $38.

Morgan Stanley downgraded Circle (CRCL) stock rating from "Hold" to "Underweight" on August 3, slashing its price target from $106 to $38. Analysts attributed the rating cut primarily to the contraction in USDC circulation, which exposed Circle’s high sensitivity to reserve-related revenue. Meanwhile, the company’s business structure is shifting toward a transaction-based revenue model with lower profit margins. The report also cut Circle’s USDC size forecasts for 2027 and 2028 by approximately 33% and 44% respectively, and projected the company’s GAAP earnings per share (EPS) to be about 3% and 20% lower than market consensus. However, Morgan Stanley’s latest filed 13F document shows that as of June 30, its holdings of Circle shares surged from around 1.46 million to 8.32 million, marking a clear position increase in the second quarter. This means that while Morgan Stanley publicly downgraded Circle’s rating and price target in early August, signaling a cautious outlook, its disclosed holdings as of the end of Q2 showed a significant position increase. It should be noted that 13F filings reflect holdings as of June 30, and cannot reflect whether positions were adjusted before or after the August rating cut. The market’s focus centers on the stark contrast between the institutional research view and the historical holdings disclosure.

17 minutes ago

Binance Research: Gen Z Prefers ETFs, With Lower Trading Frequency and Leverage Usage Than Other Age Groups

Binance Research data shows that Gen Z investors are gradually shifting to long-term asset allocation tools like ETFs, with lower trading frequency and weaker leverage preference compared to Millennials, Gen X, and Baby Boomers. In early August, ETFs accounted for 25% of Gen Z's stock trading volume. In July, ETFs made up 21.9% of Gen Z's net inflows into stocks, up from 18.5% in June; over the same period, the share of individual stock investments dropped from 77% to 74.2%. Binance Research analyzed trading activities including direct stocks, tokenized stocks, and traditional financial perpetual contracts. The data shows Gen Z's trading activity across these three asset classes is lower than that of other working-age groups. Specifically, Gen Z's traditional financial perpetual contract accounts average 13 trades per month, lower than Millennials' 17 and Gen X's 16.5. Among direct stock accounts, 22% of Gen Z users have never sold any stocks, higher than Gen X's 19% and Baby Boomers' 9%. For Gen Z accounts where stocks were purchased but never sold, the top assets by cumulative purchase amount include Broadcom, Tesla, and the Charles Schwab U.S. Dividend Equity ETF. In terms of leveraged products, Gen Z exhibits a lower risk appetite. Data shows 88.2% of Gen Z's traditional financial perpetual contract accounts have never traded leveraged or inverse ETFs, higher than Millennials' 84.5% and Gen X's 85.9%. Additionally, the tokenized stock market continues to expand. Data shows Binance's bStocks recently briefly surpassed Kraken's xStocks to become the world's second-largest tokenized stock issuance platform. As of the latest data, Ondo Finance ranks first with approximately $972 million in tokenized stock value, while xStocks and bStocks stand at around $611 million and $580 million respectively.

17 minutes ago

Serenity responds to "going to zero" rumors by sharing a screenshot, with its year-to-date return standing at 2411.84%.

Serenity released a statement accompanied by photos to address recent market rumors that his trading account has "gone to zero", calling the claims "too exaggerated". He added that despite the sharp correction in the AI sector in July, his year-to-date (YTD) return still stands at 2411.84%. Earlier, Serenity had publicly stated that the slump in AI-related stocks in July led to a roughly 49.4% drawdown in his portfolio at one time, with his positions mainly concentrated in key segments of AI infrastructure—including high-volatility sectors such as storage, optical communications, robotics, and upstream semiconductors. Serenity has long focused on "bottleneck segments" within the AI industrial chain, has conducted multiple researches on memory, photonics, CPO, and semiconductor supply chains, and has drawn market attention for his bets on AI infrastructure-related assets.

17 minutes ago

Talks between Stripe and Advent to acquire PayPal are heating up, with the potential deal valued at up to $53 billion.

Payment giant PayPal’s acquisition talks with Stripe and private equity firm Advent Global Opportunities are heating up, with a potential deal to be finalized in the coming weeks. Back in July, Stripe and Advent proposed acquiring PayPal at $60.50 per share, valuing the deal at roughly $53 billion, but PayPal rejected the offer at the time. However, sources familiar with the matter revealed that negotiations have not broken off and are still ongoing. Neither PayPal nor Stripe has confirmed the reports. PayPal declined to comment, while Stripe said it does not respond to market rumors or speculation. The potential sale comes as PayPal seeks to reverse its growth struggles. Since PayPal CEO Enrique Lores took office in March this year, he has rolled out a restructuring plan splitting the business into three segments: checkout and PayPal core services, consumer financial services (including Venmo), and payment services and crypto operations. Lores has stated that PayPal will return to its identity as a technology company and strengthen its core payment capabilities. Meanwhile, the company plans to boost efficiency through cost cuts, with an estimated 20% workforce reduction over the next two to three years. Founded in 1998, PayPal’s founding team includes Silicon Valley figures such as Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, and Max Levchin. The company grew rapidly during the pandemic due to the e-commerce boom, but has faced challenges including slowing growth and downward pressure on its stock price in recent years. If the deal is completed, it will be one of the largest acquisitions in the fintech industry in recent years.

17 minutes ago

Duan Yongping has bet on SpaceX for about 20 days, with paper gains exceeding $5.4 million.

According to public information from Xueqiu platform, Duan Yongping recently participated in SpaceX (SPCX) via two transactions: options and common stock. On July 24, he sold 1,000 SPCX put options expiring on December 18, 2026, with a strike price of $115, at a transaction price of approximately $23.26, corresponding to a premium of about $2.326 million. Then, on August 5, Duan Yongping bought 100,000 SPCX shares at a cost of roughly $108.68 per share. Based on SpaceX’s latest closing price of $140, this long stock position has an unrealized gain of around $3.132 million. Combined, Duan Yongping’s round of SpaceX trades has generated an unrealized profit of approximately $5.458 million in about 20 days. However, it should be noted that although the premium from selling the put option has been credited, the option has not yet expired. If SPCX subsequently falls below $115 and is exercised, he will still be obligated to take delivery of the shares at the strike price. SPCX has been highly volatile recently: after its June listing, the stock once surged to above $200, then dropped back to around $105. In August, as the impact of the first batch of restricted stock unlocks was weaker than expected and market risk appetite recovered, the stock price rebounded to the $140 level. As a result, Duan Yongping’s current trade has evolved from "selling puts to collect premiums" to a staged high-probability trade.

17 minutes ago

The Cboe BZX Exchange has filed a proposed rule change to list and trade the first-ever 3x leveraged Bitcoin ETF in the US. The filing, designated SR-CboeBZX-2026-065, was submitted on August 10, 2026, and represents a meaningful escalation in the arms race of crypto-linked investment products available to American traders.

Volatility Shares LLC, the firm behind the product, is sponsoring a suite of 3x leveraged funds covering Bitcoin, Ether, Gold, Silver, Crude Oil, and Natural Gas. For Bitcoin specifically, the fund would aim to deliver daily investment results equal to three times the performance of Bitcoin, achieved through first- and second-month CME Bitcoin futures contracts.

What triple leverage actually means
A 3x leveraged ETF does exactly what it sounds like: it multiplies the daily return of its underlying asset by three. If Bitcoin futures rise 2% in a day, the fund targets a 6% gain. If they fall 2%, you’re looking at a 6% loss.

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That daily reset is the part most people gloss over, and it matters enormously. Over longer holding periods, the compounding effect of daily rebalancing can cause the fund’s returns to diverge significantly from simply tripling Bitcoin’s cumulative return. A volatile, sideways market can eat into returns even if the underlying asset ends up flat. These products are designed for short-term trading, not buy-and-hold retirement portfolios.

The US market already has 2x leveraged Bitcoin ETFs. Europe got ahead of the curve, with 3x Bitcoin exchange-traded products beginning to trade in November 2025. This Cboe filing would bring the US in line with what European investors have already had access to for months.

Structure and regulatory path
One of the more interesting wrinkles in the filing is the fund’s legal structure. Rather than registering under the Investment Company Act of 1940, which governs traditional mutual funds and most ETFs, the 3x Bitcoin fund would be structured as a commodity pool. That’s a meaningful distinction because it places the product under a different regulatory framework, one overseen by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission rather than the SEC’s investment company rules.

The filing also relies on amended generic listing standards that Cboe developed between 2025 and 2026. These standards essentially create a streamlined pathway for listing certain types of derivative-based ETFs without requiring individual SEC approval for each product, provided they meet pre-established criteria.

There’s one important caveat: shares of the fund cannot actually begin trading until the associated S-1 registration statement becomes effective. The exchange approval was granted on the same date as the filing, but that doesn’t mean the fund is immediately available. The SEC still needs to greenlight the registration, and no specific listing date has been confirmed.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

In brief
A reported breach of France’s tax authority exposed data tied to 678,437 people and businesses.
The records allegedly include income figures, addresses, tax identifiers, and family information.
The data could help criminals craft targeted scams against wealthy taxpayers and Bitcoin holders.
A hacker is selling a trove of French tax records that could expose more than 678,000 people and businesses, including Bitcoin holders, to phishing, identity theft, and targeted attacks.

According to a report by French cybersecurity outlet FrenchBreaches, a hacker is selling records allegedly stolen from France’s tax authority, the DGFiP, during a June breach for several thousand euros.

Myriad: Bitcoin's next move? Click to make your prediction.“More bad news for Bitcoiners living in the leading country for wrench attacks,” Chief Security Officer at Bitcoin security platform Casa Jameson Loop wrote on X. “The French tax authority has been hacked, and 678K records leaked.”

FrenchBreaches said the database contains records on 392,867 individuals and 285,570 professionals, including 26,805 people with reference tax income of at least $116,000, 386 above $1.16 million, and eight above $11.6 million; the hacker is reportedly offering the file for several thousand dollars.

FrenchBreaches said a sample of the leaked data included names, birth details, home and email addresses, phone numbers, income figures, withholding tax rates, family status, dependents, and tax-share information.

“There DGFiP officially confirms the intrusion in its information system,” FrenchBreaches wrote in an update. Stolen credentials were used in late June to access and extract taxpayer data, and the number of people affected remains under investigation, the firm added.

According to FrenchBreaches, the attacker used stolen VPN credentials and an internal search tool to extract names, contact details, tax identifiers, income figures, withholding rates, and family information before officials cut off access.

“A scammer with real tax information and knowing of the existence of an old approach to the DGFiP could, for example, construct a fraudulent message that is much more credible than a simple fake generic email,” FrenchBreaches wrote.

While the FrenchBreaches report focused on the data leak, it comes amid a rise in wrench attacks, in which criminals use violence or threats to steal cryptocurrency.

In July, CertiK reported 52 attacks worldwide during the first half of 2026, including 33 in France. Earlier this month, Chainalysis reported 46 attacks through June, including 30 in France, with more than $30 million stolen.

“Criminals have recognized that crypto holders are high-value targets because they possess wealth in an instantly and irreversibly transferable form,” Chainalysis wrote.

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Citigroup, one of the world’s largest financial institutions, has expressed support for the Crypto CLARITY Act and called on the US Senate to advance the new digital asset regulation bill. The endorsement came as Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser emphasized the need for comprehensive legislation governing crypto markets in the United States.

Citigroup’s stance on the CLARITY ActJane Fraser voiced appreciation for current efforts to draft the Crypto CLARITY Act, while also noting that the bank continues to advocate for improvements in the legislation. Citigroup remains a major player in global banking and has increasingly engaged with digital asset markets in recent years.

Fraser stressed the importance of moving forward with the bill, even as discussions about potential amendments persist. “We’re not giving up on pushing to get some improvements made to the bill, but we would like to see a good bill go through. I think it would be excellent for the system,” Fraser stated during an interview with Fox Business.

“We’re not giving up on pushing to get some improvements made to the bill, but we would like to see a good bill go through. I think it would be excellent for the system.”

Citigroup has previously noted that regulatory progress in digital assets could help drive institutional adoption. The bank regards legislative clarity as a potential turning point for both compliance and market participation by large investors.

Market context and legislative aimsThe call for regulatory clarity comes after a difficult period for cryptocurrencies, with the global market capitalization falling by over $2 trillion in the past year. Supporters of the CLARITY Act believe the new legal framework could pave the way for a more stable and trusted crypto sector, contributing to market recovery.

The Crypto CLARITY Act is designed to establish defined rules for digital assets in the US. Its primary goals are to provide regulatory certainty, encourage institutional engagement, and strengthen investor protection.

If enacted, the legislation could help address common concerns about scams and security vulnerabilities that persist in the crypto industry. The promise of greater safeguards may help attract new participants to the market while reassuring existing investors.

Mini dictionary: Crypto CLARITY Act, proposed US legislation aimed at improving regulatory oversight and investor protection in digital asset markets. The act seeks to create clearer legal distinctions for crypto asset classes and establish consistent rules for their use and trading.

Citigroup’s recent outlook on the crypto marketWhile supporting stronger legislation, Citi recently adopted a more cautious view towards digital asset performance. On July 1, the bank reduced its 12-month price target for Bitcoin from $112,000 to $82,000. Citigroup also adjusted its projection for Ethereum, lowering it from $3,175 to $2,240.

AssetPrevious 12-Month TargetNew 12-Month TargetBitcoin$112,000$82,000Ethereum$3,175$2,240Jane Fraser’s positive remarks on the proposed crypto bill follow these cautious adjustments, reflecting Citigroup’s dual approach of backing regulatory clarity while remaining vigilant about sector volatility.

Disclaimer: The information contained in this article does not constitute investment advice. Investors should be aware that cryptocurrencies carry high volatility and therefore risk, and should conduct their own research.

Bitcoin (BTC) long positions are coming under pressure as increased volatility points to an imminent range breakout. Analysts have observed that recent moves in the BTC price are heightening the risk of liquidation for leveraged traders, particularly as the market challenges new monthly lows.

Rising threats for Bitcoin long positionsAnalysts have noted multiple threats to long positions as Bitcoin price action edges closer to the lowest levels seen in August. The combination of declining prices and market-wide shifts in derivative positioning has created an uncertain environment for bullish traders. Community analyst BorisD, writing on onchain analytics platform CryptoQuant, pointed out that leveraged long BTC positions are increasingly being liquidated as BTC/USD approaches month-to-date lows.

Recent data show a growing correlation between Bitcoin’s price and open interest (OI) on Binance. As both dropped on Thursday, the correlation reached 0.25. Open interest, which measures the total value of active derivative positions in the market, had been on a steady upward trajectory until recently, peaking at $8.15 billion on Wednesday.

“In the Bitcoin market, the Binance Open Interest (OI) Correlation and liquidation warning signals clearly reveal the process of leveraged positions being flushed out. Initially, as the price fell, the correlation shifted to the negative side, indicating that OI was rising despite declining prices,” BorisD stated.

“The simultaneous drop in both price and OI indicates that leveraged long positions are giving up, getting stopped out, or facing liquidation.”

The current market turmoil is evident in the 24-hour liquidation data, with CoinGlass reporting total cross-crypto liquidations hitting $236 million at the time of publication.

Mini dictionary: Open interest (OI) refers to the total number of outstanding derivative contracts, such as futures or options, that have not been settled. It is a metric widely used to gauge trading activity and market sentiment in derivatives markets.

MetricRecent ValueEarlier ValueBinance Open Interest$8.15 billion(peak) on Wednesday24h Crypto Liquidations$236 million(latest data)Correlation (Price & OI)0.25(Thursday)Binance open interest and leveraged liquidationsThe relationship between price and open interest is a crucial indicator of market sentiment. As the Bitcoin price began to fall, open interest at Binance initially continued to rise, suggesting that traders were increasing positions despite weakening spot prices. This divergence later gave way to a parallel decline in both price and OI, which analysts interpret as a sign of forced closing or liquidation of long positions.

The overlapping drop in both price and open interest has led to speculation that the market is undergoing a “cleanout” of excessive leverage and risk-taking. The swift shift in correlation values highlights this transitional phase, with leveraged traders appearing to exit en masse amid price volatility.

CryptoQuant CEO weighs in: “No bull market yet”CryptoQuant is a leading onchain analytics company that provides data-driven insights for investors and traders in the digital assets space. Its CEO, Ki Young Ju, shared his perspective on the current market conditions via social media. He wrote that a new Bitcoin bull market is yet to materialize, referencing several onchain indicators that remain in what he termed “bear” territory.

The stars haven’t aligned for a Bitcoin bull run just yet, as multiple onchain indicators continue to suggest persistent bearish sentiment.

Multiple composite onchain metrics, including those highlighted by onchain analytics provider Glassnode, reflect a market still in a period of extended capitulation. Glassnode’s indicators are currently registering their longest bearish phase since late 2022.

This ongoing bearish sentiment is reflected across a spectrum of technical measures, suggesting macro market recovery has yet to take hold for Bitcoin.

Disclaimer: The information contained in this article does not constitute investment advice. Investors should be aware that cryptocurrencies carry high volatility and therefore risk, and should conduct their own research.

Verition Fund Management, a Connecticut-based hedge fund overseeing roughly $15 billion in assets, has reportedly increased its Bitcoin ETF holdings by 19%. The move brings the firm’s total position to 3.07 million shares valued at approximately $110M.

The numbers and the nuance
The most recent publicly available 13F filings, covering Q1 2026 and submitted in May, showed Verition holding roughly 238,911 shares of BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) worth about $9.2M. That Q1 figure actually represented an 87% reduction from the prior quarter.

The gap between the Q1 filing and the reported 3.07 million shares is significant. It suggests one of two possibilities: either Verition dramatically reversed course after Q1 and loaded up on Bitcoin ETF shares in Q2, or the position involves a different Bitcoin ETF product entirely, not IBIT.

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Institutional sentiment is anything but uniform
The first quarter of 2026 saw a general decline in professional Bitcoin ETF holdings when measured in equivalent Bitcoin terms. Millennium Management, one of the most closely watched names in the hedge fund world, notably cut its IBIT stake during the same period.

Why Bitcoin ETFs remain the institutional on-ramp
Spot Bitcoin ETFs have fundamentally changed how traditional finance interacts with crypto. Before their approval, institutions that wanted Bitcoin exposure had to navigate custody solutions, prime brokerage relationships, and compliance headaches. ETFs simplified that equation dramatically, with custody handled by established players like Coinbase within a clear regulatory framework.

For perspective, $110M buys roughly 1,000 to 1,200 Bitcoin at recent price levels.

What to watch next
The key date to circle is the next 13F filing deadline. That’s when Verition’s Q2 2026 holdings will become public record, confirming or complicating the reported 19% increase. It will also reveal which specific Bitcoin ETF product the fund is accumulating, whether that’s BlackRock’s IBIT, Fidelity’s FBTC, or another issuer.

As of mid-August 2026, no widespread reports have corroborated Verition’s 19% position increase, suggesting it may mark a breaking development ahead of the forthcoming 13F filing cycle.

Verition was founded in 2008 and has navigated multiple market cycles. The firm operates as a diversified multi-manager platform focusing on absolute returns through strategies including credit, macroeconomic, event-driven, equity long/short, and quantitative.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

JPMorgan, with AUM of $5.1 trillion, has revealed its quarter two (Q2) report with the U.S SEC. Its latest SEC filing shows a sharp rise in Bitcoin exposure and a 338% jump in Ethereum ETF holdings.

The bank also returned to XRP through two ETF positions and added a new position in the Bitwise Solana Staking ETF.

JPMorgan Doubles Down on Bitcoin ETF ExposureAccording to JPMorgan’s Q2 2026 13F filing, the bank held a combined 10.4 million shares of BlackRock’s IBIT, worth about $355.7 million as of June 30. These shares appear across three separate IBIT fund entries in the filing and add up to the reported total. 

That marks a sharp increase from the first quarter, when JPMorgan reported about 8.3 million IBIT shares worth nearly $162 million.

JPMorgan’s options position also shifted during the quarter. IBIT call options increased to 3.94 million, while put options dropped from 4.75 million to about 3.5 million.

The increase comes even as Bitcoin ETF flows have remained unstable. U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $131.1 million in net outflows on Aug. 13, following a much larger $61.16 million outflow on Aug. 12.

Ethereum ETF Exposure Jumps 338%JPMorgan’s Q2 filing also showed a much larger position in BlackRock’s iShares Ethereum Trust (ETHA). The bank held nearly 1.17 million ETHA shares worth about $14.3 million, marking a 338% increase from the previous quarter.

The ETHA position shows that JPMorgan has increased its exposure to both Bitcoin and Ethereum through U.S.-listed ETF products.

However, the size of the Bitcoin position remains much larger. JPMorgan’s IBIT holdings are more than 20 times the value of its reported ETHA position.

JPMorgan Added XRP Back Through ETFsThe biggest surprise in the filing may be JPMorgan’s return to XRP.

The bank’s Q1 filing showed that its Bitwise XRP ETF position had fallen from 3,870 shares to zero. The latest filing reverses that move, showing fresh exposure through both the Bitwise XRP ETF and Grayscale XRP Trust ETF.

The Bitwise position was worth about $1,356, while the Grayscale XRP ETF holding was valued at roughly $3,763.

JPMorgan also reported 19,894 shares of Armada Acquisition Corp II, worth approximately $207,295. The company is linked to a Ripple-backed deal and trades under the XRPN ticker.

In addition, JPMorgan initiated a new position in the Bitwise Solana Staking ETF (BSOL), holding roughly 47,500 shares.

The next 13F filing, expected in November, will show whether the bank continued adding Bitcoin, Ethereum, and XRP exposure during Q3 or reduced its positions.

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Bitcoin miners are selling. Fast. Publicly traded mining companies have offloaded approximately 28,000 BTC in 2026, a liquidation worth around $1.78 billion at current prices, as the gap between what it costs to produce a coin and what the market will pay for it keeps widening.

Their collective reserves have fallen from 127,000 BTC at the start of the year to roughly 99,000 BTC, a drawdown of about 22% in just a few months.

The cost problem is the whole problem Average production costs for publicly traded miners sit at approximately $74,300 per BTC. With Bitcoin’s price down 27% year-to-date in 2026, a meaningful slice of the industry is running at a loss on every coin it produces. Around 20% of miners are estimated to be operating in the red under current conditions.

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The companies driving the bulk of the sales include some of the sector’s biggest names: MARA Holdings, CleanSpark, Riot Platforms, Cango, Core Scientific, and Bitdeer.

Mining difficulty has dropped roughly 18% since its November 2025 peak, which marks the longest sustained difficulty decline on record. In plain terms: the network has gotten easier to mine because weaker operators are shutting off machines and leaving.

Miners are not the only sellers, but they are consistent ones To put the miner liquidation in context, it is not the largest source of selling pressure on Bitcoin this year. ETF outflows have exceeded $4.4 billion over the same period, dwarfing the $1.78 billion in miner sales by a factor of roughly 2.5.

The AI pivot is reshaping the mining business Many mining companies are not just selling Bitcoin to survive. They are selling it to fund a transition toward artificial intelligence and high-performance computing data center operations.

Mining rigs and AI compute infrastructure share a common dependency: cheap power and purpose-built facilities. Companies that have already built out large-scale data center footprints are finding that renting that capacity to AI workloads can be more predictable and more profitable than mining Bitcoin at a loss.

A company like Core Scientific is increasingly less a Bitcoin miner and more a data center operator that happens to mine some Bitcoin on the side. The BTC sales fund that transformation.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

Bitcoin sitting idle in a wallet earns nothing. Stacks has a pitch for changing that, and it comes with real BTC attached.

The Stacks network is launching a 90-day incentive program designed to pull users deeper into its Bitcoin-native DeFi ecosystem. The program distributes 1 BTC per month, totaling 3 BTC across the full run, paid directly to participants as rewards for borrowing the stablecoin USDCx or supplying liquidity to USDCx trading pairs.

The program kicks off around September 10, 2026, timed to Bitcoin block 966,350.

What participants actually do to earn rewards Users who borrow USDCx against sBTC or STX collateral qualify for a share of the monthly BTC distribution. So do users who add liquidity to USDCx trading pairs on the network.

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sBTC is a 1:1 Bitcoin-backed asset native to the Stacks ecosystem, meaning one sBTC is always redeemable for one Bitcoin. Using it as collateral to borrow a stablecoin is essentially the same move institutional desks have been running with wrapped Bitcoin on Ethereum for years, just executed within the Stacks environment and rewarded with more BTC on top.

STX, the native token of the Stacks blockchain, also qualifies as collateral. That makes the program accessible to users who are already active in the Stacks ecosystem without necessarily holding sBTC.

Two protocol partners are running the operational infrastructure. Zest Protocol handles the lending and borrowing side, processing USDCx loans against collateral. Bitflow, a decentralized exchange built on Stacks, manages the liquidity side, where users pair USDCx with other assets to deepen on-chain trading markets.

The USDCx layer underneath it all USDCx is the stablecoin sitting at the center of this program, and it is relatively new. Stacks launched USDCx in December 2025, building it on top of Circle’s xReserve infrastructure. The backing is USDC, which itself maintains a 1:1 peg to the US dollar.

Rather than creating an entirely novel stablecoin from scratch, Stacks wrapped institutional-grade dollar infrastructure in a form that operates natively within the Bitcoin layer 2 environment. The result is a stablecoin that inherits USDC’s credibility while functioning inside a Bitcoin-secured network.

The strategic logic behind paying rewards in BTC Choosing to pay rewards in BTC rather than STX tokens is a deliberate design choice. Token-denominated reward programs have a built-in problem: the more users farm them, the more sell pressure hits the reward token, which erodes the value of future rewards in a self-defeating loop. Stacks sidesteps that entirely by paying out in Bitcoin, an asset participants presumably already want more of regardless of what the protocol’s native token is doing.

The total reward pool is 3 BTC across 90 days, with 1 BTC distributed every 30 days rather than front-loaded.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

Publicly traded Bitcoin miners are cutting mining capacity faster than the Bitcoin network overall, suggesting that more operators are redirecting electricity and infrastructure toward data centers and high-performance computing (HPC), in another sign of the sector’s evolution beyond creating more crypto.

In the latest Miner Weekly newsletter, BlocksBridge Consulting reported that realized hashrate among a cohort of public Bitcoin miners fell from 368.3 exahashes per second (EH/s) in the fourth quarter of 2025 to 319 EH/s in the second quarter of 2026, a 13.4% decline.

The contraction was even sharper when excluding Bitdeer, which continued to expand its mining operations. Without Bitdeer, the cohort’s realized hashrate fell 21.2% over the six-month period, from 324.6 EH/s to 255.9 EH/s. Bitdeer’s realized hashrate, meanwhile, increased 44% to 63 EH/s.

By comparison, the Bitcoin network’s average hashrate declined 10.6% over the same period.

The shift comes as more miners report a growing share of revenue from non-mining activities. Core Scientific generated $136.7 million in colocation revenue during the second quarter, compared with just $27.5 million from Bitcoin mining. TeraWulf reported $31.9 million in HPC lease revenue, compared with $12.8 million from mining.

Core Scientific and TeraWulf are now generating the majority of their revenue from non-mining activities.
Source: TheEnergyMag

Riot Platforms and Bitdeer remain much earlier in the transition, with Bitcoin mining continuing to account for the vast majority of their revenue in the most recent quarter.

Unwinding post-China mining boomBlocksBridge framed the current pullback as an unwinding of the expansion cycle that followed China’s Bitcoin mining ban in 2021, which triggered one of the sharpest declines in network hashrate before a rapid recovery as miners relocated overseas.

In North America, that migration helped fuel an expansion among public miners, which raised capital and acquired new power sites to expand their operations. 

One halving cycle later, the economics have shifted significantly. Weaker mining profitability, coupled with surging demand for AI infrastructure since 2022, has prompted several public miners to repurpose sites and power capacity away from Bitcoin mining entirely.

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As revealed in the latest SEC filing, U.S.-based Riot Platforms will sell 4,300 BTC and direct the proceeds toward expanding its data center network for AI workloads, confirming that the largest miners are moving away from the strategy of passively accumulating cryptocurrency.

The shift in priorities was driven by a prolonged decline in mining income. In the second quarter, the company's mining revenue fell 19.3% due to rising electricity costs and hashprice falling to historic lows.

Bitcoin mining margin pressures are funding the AI pivotThe market situation remains tense. Bitcoin is trading within a narrow range of around $63,500–$63,700, while the average cost of mining it across the market, according to industry models, stands at $76,000–$78,000 per coin.

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As a result, the average miner on the network is currently operating at a loss, as hashprice has fallen to a record low of $30–$35 per PH/s per day. Only operators with extremely cheap electricity and the latest equipment remain profitable.

Bitcoin miners revenue (USD) over the last 6 months, Source: Blockchain.comRiot's figures are better than the market average, but the broader trend has affected the company as well. Its direct cost of mining one Bitcoin rose to $49,912 due to higher energy rates and the expansion of its capacity in Kentucky. 

This forced management to partially liquidate its holdings by selling some of its accumulated coins, while mining revenue stood at $113.7 million.

At the same time, the company maintains a strong balance sheet and a $1.2 billion cushion of liquid assets, including $548.9 million in cash and a reserve of 11,380 BTC.

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However, its business model is shifting toward a more predictable infrastructure business. Riot has already delivered its first capacity for AMD, while its key long-term project is a 20-year contract to lease AI laboratory facilities, with expected revenue of $9.1 billion.

Riot's actions reflect a broader market trend in 2026, as miners gradually transform into operators of computing centers. Other major players, including MARA Holdings, Core Scientific, and Bitdeer, have previously partially or fully liquidated their crypto reserves to fund the construction of AI infrastructure.

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. 

Mathew Di Salvo

Mathew is a reporter who's covered the space since 2019, reporting on everything from Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele's Bitcoin bet to crypto exchange FTX's bankruptcy.

Two of the most famous Bitcoin bulls in the world made the same promise. Here is exactly what happened next, and why the distinction between them matters.

President Donald Trump said it in Nashville in July 2024, standing in front of the largest Bitcoin conference crowd in history. "Never sell your Bitcoin." He said it again at the White House Crypto Summit in March 2025 when Bitcoin was trading near $90,000.

Michael Saylor said it at least five documented times between 2022 and 2026, in interviews, on stage, and on X. The phrase became crypto's most repeated conviction statement.

On August 3, 2026, Saylor posted: "When I say 'Never Sell Your Bitcoin,' I speak as one saver to another. I have never sold mine. Not one Satoshi. Strategy is a public company, not my wallet."

On the same day, Strategy filed with the SEC disclosing it had sold 1,638 BTC between July 27 and August 2 at an average price of $63,957 per coin, roughly 15 percent below the company's average acquisition cost of $75,385.

The Strategy scorecardStrategy has sold Bitcoin several times in 2026. In late May, 32 BTC went first, the smallest sale but the one that broke the psychological barrier. Then 1,363 BTC for $80.8 million at end of June.

Then 2,225 BTC for $135.2 million in early July. Then 1,638 BTC for $104.73 million between July 27 and August 2.

Then 1,690 BTC for $108.6 million between August 3 and August 9. Total Bitcoin sold in 2026: approximately 6,916 BTC for roughly $431 million, all at prices below the company's average cost of $75,385 per coin.

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Current holdings stand at 840,447 BTC. MSTR shares are down approximately 70 percent over the past 12 months and trading near $97.

Trending on TheStreet Roundtable:Cathie Wood trims Ethereum exposure on 11th anniversaryU.S. Treasury attacks Iran's Hormuz 'extortion' networkJPMorgan issues blunt warning on crypto's futureThe Trump distinctionTrump's situation is different and requires accuracy. Trump personally still holds Bitcoin, his financial disclosure confirms a cold wallet position above $50 million, untouched.

The "never sell" promise he made is technically still intact at the personal level. However, Trump Media, his separately managed company, has moved approximately 7,281 BTC to exchange addresses in 2026, though transfers to exchanges do not automatically confirm sales, and Trump Media has denied selling its Bitcoin holdings.

What the phrase actually means nowSaylor's clarification on August 3 drew the line cleanly: his personal Bitcoin remains unsold. Strategy's company Bitcoin is a different calculation, one driven by $1.26 billion in annual preferred stock dividends that require cash the company does not always have without selling something.

The "never sell" message was always directed at retail investors holding their own coins.

The companies built on top of that message operate under different constraints entirely.

Bitcoin ETFs experienced significant outflows, with a combined sale of 966 BTC valued at approximately $61.16 million. BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, and Fidelity, one of the leading American financial services corporations, led these moves with sizable dispositions from their respective funds.

Major BTC outflows by BlackRock and FidelityBlackRock’s ETF sold 227 BTC, translating to a value of $14.34 million. At the same time, Fidelity’s ETF offloaded an even larger amount, disposing of around 739 BTC for $46.82 million. These decisions indicate a possible adjustment in the allocation strategies of both institutions.

The activity marks one of the larger recent outflows from Bitcoin ETFs and has drawn market attention to the actions of these two financial giants. Both institutions are highly influential in shaping investment trends among traditional and crypto-focused investors.

With BlackRock and Fidelity leading substantial Bitcoin sales, the ETF outflows reflect investor caution in current market conditions.

During the period of these outflows, Bitcoin traded near $63,690, and market sentiment remained characterized by uncertainty and caution. Analysts note that such significant ETF sell-offs can create downward pressure on Bitcoin’s price, especially when combined with a risk-averse investor climate.

Ethereum ETFs record inflowsIn contrast to the Bitcoin ETF outflows, Ethereum ETFs saw inflows amounting to 3,920 ETH, valued at roughly $7.38 million. BlackRock participated in this trend by purchasing the same amount of ETH, indicating a possible shift in investor preference from Bitcoin to Ethereum.

With Ethereum trading around $1,890, the increased inflows into Ethereum ETFs suggest that some institutions and investors are reevaluating its prospects, potentially positioning it more favorably amid current market volatility.

This divergent movement between Bitcoin and Ethereum highlights a growing difference in investor confidence and perceived opportunity between the two largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization.

ETF ProviderAsset Sold (BTC)Value ($ million)Asset Bought (ETH)Value ($ million)BlackRock22714.343,9207.38Fidelity73946.8200Total96661.163,9207.38Market observers continue to monitor these ETF movements, as changes in fund allocations by industry leaders such as BlackRock and Fidelity can influence broader trends among institutional and retail investors alike.

Disclaimer: The information contained in this article does not constitute investment advice. Investors should be aware that cryptocurrencies carry high volatility and therefore risk, and should conduct their own research.

TLDR CEO Simon Gerovich clarified that Metaplanet transferred 5,014 BTC (valued at $322M) between company-controlled custody addresses rather than selling Company Bitcoin reserves stay unchanged at 43,000 BTC after the internal transfers The $322 million transfer incurred approximately $8 in blockchain transaction fees Japanese firm ranks as the world’s third-largest corporate Bitcoin holder, trailing Strategy and Twenty One Capital Acquisition roadmap aims for 100,000 BTC by late 2026 and 210,000 BTC by late 2027 On August 13, Metaplanet CEO Simon Gerovich publicly addressed market speculation surrounding significant Bitcoin movements from the Tokyo-based treasury company’s wallets.

“This was a routine custody operation. No bitcoin was sold, and our holdings remain 43,000 BTC,” Gerovich stated.

His clarification followed observations by blockchain analysts who detected substantial wallet activity associated with Metaplanet during a 24-hour window. Analytics platform Lookonchain identified 3,881 BTC departing from wallets connected to the firm, representing approximately $247 million in value.

We transferred 5,014 BTC between Metaplanet custodial addresses over the past 24 hours. This was a routine custody operation. No bitcoin was sold, and our holdings remain 43,000 BTC.

All of our addresses are published, which is why the transfers were observable in real time.…

— Simon Gerovich (@gerovich) August 12, 2026

The CEO subsequently revealed that the actual amount transferred totaled 5,014 BTC, approximately $322 million at current valuations. He emphasized that all Bitcoin remained within Metaplanet’s controlled custodial infrastructure.

Notably, transferring $322 million worth of Bitcoin across the network required only about $8 in mining fees.

What Triggered the Market Speculation Substantial Bitcoin movements from publicly identified corporate wallets typically generate immediate market scrutiny. Since Metaplanet discloses its wallet addresses, the transfers were immediately observable to blockchain monitoring services.

However, wallet transfers don’t necessarily indicate asset liquidation. Companies routinely move Bitcoin among cold storage solutions, custodial partners, or internal wallets while retaining complete ownership. Wednesday’s onchain activity revealed destination addresses but provided no evidence of conversion to fiat currency.

Similar incidents have occurred previously with Metaplanet. During March, the company relocated approximately 4,986 BTC valued near $368 million following an extended period of wallet dormancy. That movement also proved to be an internal transfer rather than a divestment.

Corporate disclosure records showed no Bitcoin sale announcements from Metaplanet as of August 13. The company’s most recent regulatory filing, dated August 10, pertained to an extraordinary shareholder assembly. Their last documented Bitcoin acquisition filing was submitted July 2.

Metaplanet’s Current Position in Bitcoin Treasury Rankings With 43,000 BTC under management, Metaplanet occupies the third position among publicly traded corporations worldwide in terms of Bitcoin reserves. Strategy dominates the rankings with 840,447 BTC, while Twenty One Capital holds second place with 43,514 BTC. Metaplanet trails Twenty One Capital by merely 514 BTC.

Bitcoin traded around $63,616 on August 13, significantly below Metaplanet’s disclosed average purchase price of approximately $96,191 per coin. Lookonchain calculated the company was holding roughly $1.4 billion in paper losses at current market levels. These represent unrealized losses on the balance sheet, distinct from actual realized losses since no assets were liquidated.

Metaplanet equity traded near 223 yen at 1:14 p.m. JST, showing a modest 0.9% gain for the session. The stock experienced no significant downward pressure after the CEO’s public statement.

Metaplanet Inc., 3350.T

While the company’s primary listing operates on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, American investors can access shares through OTCQX markets under ticker symbol MTPLF.

To reach its stated objective of 100,000 BTC by the conclusion of 2026, Metaplanet must acquire an additional 57,000 Bitcoin. The firm’s most recent confirmed acquisition occurred in July, when it elevated total holdings to 43,000 BTC through a 2,823 BTC purchase during the second quarter.

Beyond treasury accumulation strategy, Metaplanet introduced a 4 billion yen Bitcoin venture program in March focused on financial infrastructure development within Japan. As of August 13, the sole official statement regarding the recent transfers remains Gerovich’s confirmation: a standard custody operation with zero impact on treasury holdings.

The service remains offline while incoming operators work to fix vulnerabilities; Boltz said attacks caused losses to the company.

Boltz’s original founders have stepped down, and an unnamed group of “veteran Bitcoiners” has agreed to take over the suspended Bitcoin swap service, the company said Wednesday.

The incoming operators will provide capital and engineering resources, while work to find and fix vulnerabilities is underway, according to Boltz. The company said it was withholding the group’s names for now and that the goal was to restore swaps “as soon as possible.”

All original founders left the company effective immediately and will have no formal or authoritative role in the project, Boltz said. Any future participation by them in its open-source software would be voluntary.

Boltz said it suspended the service on Aug. 3 after AI-assisted attackers targeted it with increasing frequency, intensity and sophistication over several months. The company said several attacks succeeded and caused losses, but that user funds were never at risk because the service is non-custodial.

In its Aug. 3 outage notice, Boltz said attackers were iterating faster than its team could find and patch flaws. On Wednesday, it described itself as a bootstrapped five-person startup that lacked the resources to withstand the attacks over the long term.

Swaps Remain OfflineAs of Wednesday, the Boltz web app still displayed “Swap Services Disabled.” The outage notice said the API remained available for cooperative refunds and that unilateral refunds did not depend on Boltz infrastructure. Boltz also said its support team remained reachable.

Boltz’s API documentation says clients use its REST API to query supported pairs and to create and monitor swaps. Its official software supports swaps involving Lightning, bitcoin and Liquid bitcoin; a broader reference library also lists RBTC, WBTC, USDT and USDC among supported currencies.

The documentation lists Aqua Wallet, Bull Bitcoin Mobile, Klever Wallet and Misty Breez as users of Boltz-related libraries. New swaps remained unavailable at the reporting cutoff.

Circle National Trust custodies the backing, while published Bitcoin addresses and Chainlink Proof of Reserve provide onchain visibility; Arc support remains forthcoming.

Circle renewed its push for cirBTC as neutral institutional collateral in an Aug. 12 post, but the product is not a new launch. It has been live on Ethereum since June 8 and had only about 40 tokens outstanding at the time of review, compared with more than 116,000 WBTC and 97,000 cbBTC.

cirBTC exists onchain and can be minted and redeemed by eligible institutional participants, but distribution remains limited. An Etherscan page for the contract showed a maximum total supply of 40.01955869 cirBTC and 11 holder addresses. CoinGecko labels the asset “preview only” and says it is unavailable on the centralized and decentralized exchanges it tracks.

Circle says Circle Mint provides the institutional workflow for minting and redeeming cirBTC. Ethereum is currently the only live chain Circle identifies for the token; Arc is the next named deployment, with broader multichain support planned.

How the Backing WorkscirBTC is issued by Circle International Bermuda Limited, which Circle identifies as a Class F digital asset business regulated by the Bermuda Monetary Authority. The underlying bitcoin is held through Circle’s Bermuda affiliate and custodied by Circle National Trust for the exclusive benefit of cirBTC holders, according to Circle. The company describes Circle National Trust as a federally chartered national trust bank and qualified custodian supervised by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

Circle’s June launch post also said the underlying BTC is segregated from the company’s corporate assets.

A Circle reserve dashboard timestamped Aug. 11 at 8 a.m. showed 40.02159077 cirBTC in supply against 42.5070808 BTC in reserves. The dashboard lists the BTC reserve addresses and their individual balances, allowing counterparties to inspect the holdings on the Bitcoin blockchain.

Circle says cirBTC uses Chainlink Proof of Reserve rather than a monthly attestation model. Chainlink describes the system as publishing verified reserve data onchain so users and protocols can monitor whether tokenized assets remain collateralized.

Circle’s neutrality claim is commercial rather than a claim of decentralized issuance. The company defines neutrality as not operating a competing centralized exchange, decentralized exchange or lending protocol. Minting and redemption run through Circle Mint, while Etherscan identifies the cirBTC token as a proxy contract.

A Long Way From WBTC and cbBTCCoinGecko put WBTC at 116,132 tokens in circulation and a $7.362 billion market capitalization at the time of review. Coinbase Wrapped BTC had 97,231 tokens in circulation and a $6.162 billion market capitalization.

The incumbents also have broader chain footprints. WBTC’s official site identifies Ethereum, Solana, Tron, BNB Chain, Base, Kava and Osmosis as native networks. CoinGecko lists cbBTC deployments on Ethereum, Base, Monad, Solana and Arbitrum.

cirBTC, by comparison, does not yet have a tracked CoinGecko price or market capitalization. For now, Ethereum is the only live chain Circle identifies, while Arc support is “coming soon,” subject to applicable regulatory approvals.

It’s been five years since El Salvador became the first country to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender.

President Nayib Bukele announced the plan at the Bitcoin conference in Miami on June 5, 2021, to the jubilant cries and applause of the Bitcoin community, who hailed the tiny Central American nation as living proof that BTC could be sovereign money.

Bukele sold the experiment as a way to bank the unbanked, slash remittance costs, and attract investment to the impoverished nation.

But five years on, who did the experiment benefit, and what did it actually achieve?

Dr. Tobias Boos, a senior scientist at the University of Vienna who leads a research project examining the political economy of Bitcoin in El Salvador, tells Magazine:

“There is little doubt that the project was a failure if we take seriously the reasons Bukele gave for its adoption. Foreign direct investment in this sector didn’t increase, it did not effectively bank the unbanked, and it is not widely used for remittances.”Yet El Salvador’s Bitcoin bet undeniably changed the conversation around the world’s number-one cryptocurrency, and turned nation-state adoption from a theoretical possibility into a living, breathing reality. Whether it succeeded or failed depends on what you think El Salvador was trying to achieve.

Five years into El Salvador’s Bitcoin betIn a video message played at Bitcoin 2021, Bukele said the adoption of Bitcoin would generate jobs in the short term and “help provide financial inclusion to thousands outside the formal economy.”

Today, the evidence for mass adoption is difficult to square with that ambition.

Research by Boos, Grigera and Schmid in 2025 found that the Salvadorans who adopted Bitcoin tended to be young, male, urban, more highly educated, and, perhaps more importantly, already banked. Boos concludes that, “Mass adoption by citizens did not occur.”

El Salvador had one of the region’s lowest levels of banking access at the time, with just 35.9% of people over 15 holding a bank account in 2021, according to World Bank data.

Account ownership at a financial institution (% of population ages 15+) - El Salvador. Source: World Bank

Yet the government’s Chivo Bitcoin wallet did little to solve the problem: it could transfer funds to bank accounts, but didn’t remove the underlying barriers preventing unbanked Salvadorans from accessing the financial system in the first place.

According to Boos and his colleagues, the same problem emerged with remittances, another pillar of Bukele’s pitch. In 2024, remittances accounted for around 24% of El Salvador’s gross domestic product, with the United States providing a full 98% of the total. But El Salvador adopted USD as its official currency more than 20 years ago, and having most remittances arrive from a country with the same currency removed one of the major cost reductions that Bitcoin could theoretically offer: currency conversion.

Despite the promise that Bitcoin could make these transfers cheaper, crypto wallets accounted for barely 1% of remittances by 2024, down from a peak of 1.7% in 2020-21.

It suggests the government’s early efforts to stimulate adoption failed to translate into sustained use. Chivo offered users $30 in Bitcoin for signing up, but the National Bureau of Economic Research’s nationally representative research found that more than 60% of early Chivo users never made another transaction after spending their free BTC.

Joe Nakamoto, a Bitcoin-focused journalist who has repeatedly reported from El Salvador, found a similar disconnect on the ground.

In a recent video documenting one of his visits, he said he tested Bitcoin acceptance at 21 shops in a San Salvador mall, and found that only four accepted Bitcoin, and just one did so smoothly. He tells Magazine:

“It’s very, very hard, borderline impossible to genuinely live on Bitcoin in El Salvador. Unless you’re just eating pupusas on the beach in El Zonte, and then going across to the other Bitcoin circular economies and finding workarounds.” When the IMF pulled the plugThe government has also faced international pressure to retreat from its Bitcoin experiment. In December 2024, it reached a $1.4 billion financing agreement with the International Monetary Fund, under which it agreed to scale back its involvement in Bitcoin.

El Salvador’s experiment with Bitcoin as Legal Tender. Source: NBER

The deal was approved in February 2025, and in January, the government amended its Bitcoin law to make acceptance voluntary, require taxes to be paid in US dollars and limit public sector involvement in Bitcoin-related activities, effectively dismantling the most radical parts of Bukele’s experiment.

While Bitcoin could still be used voluntarily, the state no longer compelled businesses to accept it or used it as part of the country’s public financial system.

The IMF later found that Bitcoin had produced “no evidence” of a beneficial use case for the unbanked and had had minimal impact on financial inclusion. Boos says:

“The ‘soft adoption,’ as we refer to it in one of our articles, never led to mass adoption for payments. I am not aware of any instances where tax payments were made using Bitcoin, and the infrastructure has largely remained unused.” What Bitcoin actually did achieveIf El Salvador failed to turn Bitcoin into everyday money, it still managed something no country had done before: it made nation-state Bitcoin adoption real.

Before 2021, the idea of a government adopting Bitcoin was still largely hypothetical; El Salvador made it real. As Samson Mow, chief executive of Bitcoin infrastructure firm JAN3, tells Magazine:

“The question in front of every president or finance minister shifted from whether a sovereign could hold Bitcoin to why it hadn’t.” The experiment also thrust El Salvador into the center of the global Bitcoin movement, with many prominent Bitcoiners, including Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert, making Bitcoin country their new home. Herbert later became director of El Salvador’s National Bitcoin Office, showing just how closely intertwined parts of the Bitcoin movement have become with the government.

Bitcoin Beach, the grassroots project in El Zonte that predated the national experiment, is still one of the clearest examples of a functioning Bitcoin economy, with local businesses, hotels and tourism operators continuing to accept Bitcoin, even after the government made acceptance voluntary.

Nakamoto’s reporting has also documented several concrete success stories for everyday Salvadorans, including Mama Rosa, who saves Bitcoin from her pupusa stand, and Napo, who expanded from one taxi to a fleet.

Bukele’s government even went further than simply holding BTC on its balance sheet or making it legal tender by promoting plans for Volcano Bonds and Bitcoin City.

After repeated delays, the IMF agreement effectively kneecapped those projects’ progress, but the symbolic impact still matters. Mow explains:

“Bitcoin gained a proof of concept, and El Salvador gained a global platform.” There’s also an important distinction between what El Salvador achieved for Bitcoin and what Bitcoin achieved for El Salvador.

Boos argues that the symbolic significance has largely been “for” the international Bitcoin community, rather than evidence of economic success “in” El Salvador. Nakamoto says:

“It looks more like a marketing campaign for foreigners than a genuine economic strategy for Salvadorans. It’s beautiful branding, pointed at people with the passports and the capital. Bukele is a razor-sharp operator. He knows exactly who’s watching and who’s clapping. The Bitcoin country strategy, it’s not for them. It breaks my heart to say it, but it’s for us.” The uncomfortable part: Bitcoin and BukelePerhaps the hardest question is what El Salvador’s Bitcoin experiment says about the relationship between Bitcoiners’ ideals of individual freedom and the government that imposed it.

IMF Executive Board approves 40-month fund facility. Source: IMF

Bukele has concentrated power during his time in office, and the state of emergency introduced to combat gang violence in March 2022 remains in place more than four years later.

Human Rights Watch says the government has continued to remove checks on executive power, and local and international human rights groups have documented mass arbitrary detention and due process violations under the state of emergency.

But judging Bukele only through that lens risks missing why he remains so popular at home. El Salvador was once in the grip of powerful gangs, with many Salvadorans living with daily threats of extortion, violence and death. The official homicide rate fell from 53.1 per 100,000 people the year he took office, to just 1.3 per 100,000 in 2025.

Bukele’s crackdown has transformed public security, and many Salvadorans view the trade-off between security and civil liberties very differently from critics abroad. Nakamoto says:

“It’s a country that has serious scars. Bukele has saved the nation in many ways. He kicked out the gangs and also he has done wonderful things for Bitcoin in terms of putting it on the world map.” While Mow acknowledges the positive impact of Bukele’s gang crackdown, he says the broader implications of normalizing emergency powers cannot be ignored:

“In the hands of someone with restraint, those same powers can accomplish real things, like El Salvador’s crackdown on the gangs. But it’s important to think ahead. What serves a leader with restraint today can just as easily serve one without restraint once there’s a change of guard.”For Bitcoiners, that leaves an uncomfortable tension. El Salvador’s Bitcoin experiment has become inseparable from the government that made it possible, and from a president whose record is far more complicated than the Bitcoin success story alone suggests.

That may ultimately be the most difficult part of assessing El Salvador five years on: Bitcoin gave Bukele a global platform, and Bukele gave Bitcoin something it had never had before — a nation-state willing to put it at the center of its economic strategy.

Magazine: Strategy became a symbol of the dot-com crash: Could history repeat?

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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. 

“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%.

Mathew Di Salvo

Mathew is a reporter who's covered the space since 2019, reporting on everything from Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele's Bitcoin bet to crypto exchange FTX's bankruptcy.

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.

Russia proposes exchange trading of Bitcoin, Ether and Tether’s USDTLatest NewsPublishedAug 11, 2026

Russia’s central bank proposed allowing Bitcoin, Ether and USDT to trade on regulated exchanges, following a law signed by President Vladimir Putin last week.

Russia’s central bank has compiled a proposed list of crypto assets that could be admitted to public trading on exchanges under new rules approved last week.

The list includes Bitcoin, Ether and Tether’s stablecoin USDT, the Bank of Russia said Tuesday, adding that the assets meet criteria including market capitalization, average daily trading volume and at least five years of price history on overseas markets.

The proposal follows a new law, signed by President Vladimir Putin on Aug. 4, that gives the Bank of Russia authority to determine which digital currencies can be admitted to organized trading and set related rules.

Under the rules, non-qualified investors could buy up to 300,000 Russian rubles ($3,650) worth of cryptocurrency per year through each intermediary, including a broker, crypto exchange service or asset manager. Qualified investors would face no purchase limits for crypto assets traded on exchanges or over-the-counter markets.

“Before making transactions, all investors, regardless of their status, will have to pass a test and familiarize themselves with the risks of investing in crypto assets,” the Bank of Russia said.

The central bank said the restrictions are designed to protect non-qualified investors from sharp and unpredictable fluctuations in crypto prices. The regulator is accepting comments on the proposal until Aug. 24.

Cointelegraph is committed to independent, transparent journalism. This news article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and aims to provide accurate and timely information. Readers are encouraged to verify information independently.

The Coldcard hack is testing crypto investigators’ ability to measure losses from self-custody wallets, where victim reports are critical to establishing the scale of the theft.

Blockchain analytics platform CryptoQuant currently puts confirmed losses at 1,432 Bitcoin, while other analysts have traced substantially more funds to the attack.

Galaxy Research and blockchain intelligence company TRM Labs both say their analysis points to a higher toll, while distinguishing between losses directly confirmed by victims and funds attributed to the attack through on-chain patterns.

That makes self-custody attacks difficult to quantify: Unlike an exchange hack, there is no complete list of affected accounts, leaving investigators to build estimates rather than pin down a definitive toll.

Galaxy traces losses beyond victim reportsGalaxy’s Alex Thorn told Cointelegraph the platform’s earlier estimate of as much as 1,816 BTC was a potential figure rather than a confirmed loss total.

As of Tuesday, Galaxy put its high-confidence minimum at 1,730 Bitcoin, with Thorn saying the figure could still increase as more victim reports corroborate attack patterns.

Source: Galaxy Research

“We have directly confirmed 450+ BTC directly from victim reports, but their reports have helped identify other, as-yet-unknown victims in more than 730 total BTC,” Thorn said. Galaxy uses those reports to corroborate broader attack patterns, while withholding funds it suspects but cannot yet sufficiently verify. “We are still withholding many more BTC we suspect but for which we lack sufficient corroboration,” Thorn said.

TRM Labs said its independent tracing lands in the same range as Galaxy, while its recent analysis estimated that attackers drained about 1,816 BTC from more than 5,200 addresses across four waves. “Investigators should expect the estimate to keep moving upward before it stabilizes,” TRM’s global head of policy Ari Redbord told Cointelegraph.

CryptoQuant takes a stricter approachCryptoQuant’s head of research, Julio Moreno, told Cointelegraph that the company starts with public reports from victims, including wallet addresses or transaction IDs, and then checks those reports against known on-chain patterns from the attack.

That approach puts CryptoQuant’s confirmed tally at 1,432 BTC, which Moreno described as a floor that could rise if more victims publicly disclose their hacked addresses.

Source: CryptoQuant

Moreno said CryptoQuant is cautious about identifying victims solely from on-chain patterns because doing so could produce false positives and inflate the estimate.

“Because the stolen Bitcoin belonged to individuals and not to a centralized entity, like an exchange, we can only confirm what each victim publicly discloses,” he said.

Hard number to pin downMoreno emphasized the total will remain an estimate because investigators can only confirm what victims disclose. He said:

“Knowing the total BTC stolen is difficult, and it will always be an estimation.”Chainalysis told Cointelegraph it has not conducted an independent tally of the losses, while blockchain investigator ZachXBT publicly said he has no plans to monitor or trace the incident.

Magazine: Do the Coldcard attacks mean all hardware wallets are now insecure?

Cointelegraph is committed to independent, transparent journalism. This news article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and aims to provide accurate and timely information. Readers are encouraged to verify information independently.

National Bank of Canada just revealed that it holds millions of dollars in crypto ETFs, such as an XRP ETF, and several Bitcoin ETFs, in its latest SEC Form 13F filing. The disclosure follows the Grayscale’s XRP Trust ETF reports considerable XRP sales in the initial half of 2026.

National Bank of Canada Reports XRP ETF, Bitcoin ETF Holdings The filing reveals that National Bank had 3,848 shares in the Bitwise XRP ETF, worth about $330,000 at the date of the filing. It was announced in conjunction with the bank’s investments in several Bitcoin exchange-traded products.

The largest exposure to cryptocurrencies that National Bank reported was in the ProShares Bitcoin ETF, which consisted of 42,321 shares valued at about $5.31 million.

The bank also owned 55,644 shares of the Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund worth approximately $1.09 million. It had 6,831 shares of the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust ETF, representing around $150,000 in Grayscale Bitcoin exposure.

The submission also revealed 2,596 shares of the Grayscale Bitcoin Mini Trust ETF with a reported value of approximately $100,000.

The combined value of the disclosed holdings in both XRP and Bitcoin is approximately $6.98 million, as per the filing’s values.

Grayscale XRP ETF Sells $180M In XRP The institutional disclosure follows Grayscale’s XRP Trust ETF disclosure of massive XRP sales.

According to recent filings, Grayscale has sold $180.78 million worth of XRP in the first half of 2026. These transactions were comprised of approximately 103.41 million XRP to satisfy investor redemptions.

The sales also impacted the trust’s NAV since the price of XRP has been falling during the same time. Grayscale reported over $34 million of realized losses on the sale of XRP.