Track market-moving stories before they get noisy

The US military has begun examining options for a potential air assault on Cuba, with planning centered around the Army’s 101st Airborne Division, according to a CBS report. No final decisions have been made by President Trump or the Pentagon, but the mere existence of these contingency discussions adds another layer of geopolitical risk to a year that already has investors on edge.

What’s happening on the ground The planning reportedly stems from intelligence indicating Cuba has acquired over 300 military drones from Russia and Iran. Those numbers have raised alarms about potential threats to US interests in the Caribbean, including the naval station at Guantanamo Bay.

Since February 2026, the US has ramped up intelligence-gathering flights near Cuba’s coastline. The aircraft involved, P-8A Poseidons and MQ-4C Tritons, are the kind of surveillance platforms you deploy when you’re building a serious operational picture.

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These discussions follow US military operations in Venezuela earlier this year. President Trump has made recent public statements regarding Cuba, though the contingency planning is described as early-stage and routine rather than an active military undertaking.

What investors should actually watch The most important signal right now is whether this stays in the contingency-planning phase or moves toward active preparation. There’s a meaningful difference between military planners sketching options on a whiteboard and the 101st Airborne Division actually staging equipment.

For crypto-specific positioning, the historical playbook suggests watching Bitcoin’s correlation with gold during periods of military escalation. When Bitcoin trades as “digital gold,” geopolitical risk tends to be bullish. When it trades as a risk-on tech proxy, the same headlines can be bearish.

Stablecoin flows are another tell. During past geopolitical shocks, capital has tended to rotate from volatile crypto assets into USDT and USDC as traders move to the sidelines without fully exiting the ecosystem. A spike in stablecoin market cap without a corresponding rise in Bitcoin or Ethereum prices would signal that smart money is bracing for impact.

Traders should also keep an eye on the dollar. Military escalation in the Western Hemisphere could strengthen the dollar through safe-haven flows, which historically creates headwinds for Bitcoin. Alternatively, if markets interpret the escalation as fiscally irresponsible, the dollar could weaken, providing a tailwind.

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

ORANGE JUICE has raised $40 million to launch a permanent capital company that will acquire, improve, and hold American businesses while building a Bitcoin treasury.

The company is positioning itself as a long term alternative to traditional private equity, allowing founders to transition ownership without placing their businesses on a fixed resale timeline.

“Building a business takes decades. Founders deserve more than one path when it is time to transition ownership,” founding partner Nico Lechuga said. “We believe permanent capital offers an important alternative to traditional private equity.”

ORANGE JUICE will initially target stable businesses generating between $1 million and $10 million in annual cash flow across multiple sectors.

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Acquired companies will retain their identities, while founders will have the option to retire, remain in leadership roles, or transition gradually. Sellers will receive part of their consideration in ORANGE JUICE equity, allowing them to retain exposure to the company’s future growth.

The company was founded by partners from Bitcoin venture capital firm ego death capital, including Jeff Booth, Lyn Alden, Nico Lechuga, and Andi Pitt. Adrian Steckel also joined as a founding partner, while Ruben Zweiban will serve as operating partner.

Mexican billionaire Ricardo Salinas, founder and chairman of Grupo Salinas, is participating as the anchor investor.

“Cash flow is king, and you cannot count on governments to protect the value of your money,” Salinas said. “ORANGE JUICE is built on both, cash flowing companies and a Bitcoin treasury. That is why I am backing this team.”

Cash generated by acquired businesses will be reinvested into additional acquisitions or allocated to the company’s Bitcoin treasury. ORANGE JUICE said it plans to use leverage conservatively while maintaining access to capital markets.

The company is also assembling an internal operating team focused on improving portfolio companies and helping them adopt artificial intelligence as productivity tools reshape traditional businesses.

ORANGE JUICE intends to pursue a public listing in the future, which would give the company access to public capital markets and provide a liquid ownership currency for future acquisitions.

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

In brief BIP-110 would restrict several methods used to embed non-financial data in Bitcoin transactions. Supporters say the proposal would reduce blockchain spam, while critics argue it would invalidate legitimate transactions and risk a chain split. Despite attracting little miner support, BIP-110 has become one of Bitcoin's biggest governance debates in years. A proposal to change Bitcoin's consensus rules has divided developers, miners, companies, and users over how the network should evolve and who gets to decide.

The dispute centers around Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 110, or BIP-110. If implemented, BIP-110 would temporarily restrict several methods used to embed arbitrary data in Bitcoin transactions.

Supporters say the proposal would reduce blockchain spam and reinforce Bitcoin's role as money, while critics argue it would reject valid transactions and could split the network.

The debate has drawn reactions from Bitcoin developer Luke Dashjr, Blockstream CEO Adam Back, Strategy Executive Chairman Michael Saylor, Casa Chief Security Officer Jameson Lopp, and Bitcoin advocate Samson Mow.

“There are 110 things more dangerous to Bitcoin than spam. BIP 110 turns a spam dispute into a consensus change that would invalidate some currently valid, fee-paying transactions,” Saylor wrote on X. “That precedent is the danger. We should save our energy for threats that really matter.”

What would BIP-110 change?Bitcoin transactions can include more than payments. They can also carry text, images, token metadata, and other information through transaction scripts and witness data.

As a soft fork, BIP-110 would tighten Bitcoin's consensus rules by limiting several techniques used to embed that data. The proposal would limit most new transaction outputs to 34 bytes, restore an 83-byte limit for OP_RETURN outputs, cap certain witness elements at 256 bytes, and temporarily restrict several Taproot features commonly used for inscriptions. (Inscriptions are to Bitcoin what NFTs and other similar assets are to blockchain networks like Ethereum and Solana.)

Critics argue that BIP-110 would invalidate some transactions that are currently valid under Bitcoin's consensus rules and set a precedent for future protocol changes. In a February blog post, Jameson Lopp argued that BIP-110 would weaken two of Bitcoin's defining properties: censorship resistance and predictability.

“Bitcoin's strength lies in its censorship resistance and predictability,” Loop wrote. “BIP-110 signals that the protocol can be altered to censor subjectively ‘undesirable’ transactions, eroding its image as permissionless programmable money.”

BIP-110's mandatory signaling period begins in August, and so far, only 1% of miners have shown support for BIP-110, according to the proposal's monitoring dashboard.

Blockstream CEO Adam Back argued that Bitcoin's decentralized design prevents users from imposing their preferences on others and that its technical consensus process is intentionally resistant to change. While supporters are free to create their own fork, he wrote, "Bitcoin won't be joining it."

“Now the tough pill, which is unfortunately true,” Back wrote on X. “If you won't listen to reason, educate yourself, learn, the same radical freedom applies to you: your permissionless recourse is to club together and create a fork.”

The debate began with OrdinalsThe current dispute dates back to early 2023 with the launch of Ordinals, a protocol created by Bitcoin developer Casey Rodarmor that allows images, text, video, and other digital content to be inscribed directly onto individual satoshis, the smallest unit of Bitcoin. Ordinals use features introduced by Bitcoin's SegWit and Taproot upgrades to create NFT-like assets directly on the Bitcoin blockchain.

As Ordinals and BRC-20 tokens gained popularity, demand for Bitcoin block space increased, pushing transaction fees higher. Supporters say those fees generated additional revenue for miners and strengthened Bitcoin's long-term security.

However, critics, including Dashjr, have argued that inscriptions exploit the Bitcoin network, describing them as spam rather than legitimate financial transactions.

Mow urges consensusIn an essay posted to X on Tuesday titled The Bitcoin Alliance, Samson Mow argued that Bitcoin participants should think of themselves as an alliance rather than a community, with developers, miners, companies, educators, and users each contributing to the network in different ways.

“During the Blocksize War, there was never this ‘if you're not with us, you're against us’ mentality on our side,” he wrote. “The small block camp never had to coerce anyone to join. We just all "got it" and were confident in our position.”

For reference, the Blocksize Wars (2015–2017) centered on whether Bitcoin should increase its 1 MB block size limit to process more transactions in a single block on the network. In the end, the "small block" camp won out, with "big blockers" forking off to create Bitcoin Cash in 2017 and later Bitcoin SV in 2018.

Mow wrote that he shares concerns about blockchain spam but opposes BIP-110 because he believes protocol changes require broad consensus. Mow also criticized Bitcoin Core developers for their handling of recent OP_RETURN policy changes, arguing that both sides contributed to escalating the dispute.

“The way they handled the OP_RETURN change was full of stupid mistakes, from banning people on GitHub to the ninja ACKs,” he wrote. “Any normal person could have predicted the reaction from the plebs. People store their time and value in Bitcoin. Anything that appears to threaten that will get people up in arms.”

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Bitcoin has slipped below $65,000 after Iran rejected renewed prospects for peace talks with the United States, adding fresh pressure to risk assets as military operations continue.

Summary

Iran rejected U.S. peace talks despite Trump’s claim that Tehran wants a deal. Bitcoin fell below $65,000 as renewed U.S.-Iran tensions weighed on markets. Polymarket traders see only a 20% chance of peace talks resuming this month. Iran’s Foreign Ministry said there are currently no plans for negotiations with the United States, with the country’s immediate priority remaining its defense efforts. The statement came after U.S. President Donald Trump claimed during a FOX interview that Iran had reached out earlier and wanted to make a deal, suggesting diplomatic contact could resume.

The conflicting messages have arrived as the U.S.-Iran conflict intensifies once again. Over recent days, both countries have continued exchanging strikes, while Trump has reinstated the Iranian blockade in the Strait of Hormuz and warned that Washington could expand military operations if Tehran does not return to negotiations.

According to data from crypto.news, Bitcoin (BTC) briefly gave up earlier gains and fell below the $65,000 level, changing hands at around $64,800, down less than 1% on the day. The decline interrupted a rally that had followed softer-than-expected U.S. Producer Price Index (PPI) data earlier in the session.

Fresh military operations keep risk appetite under pressure While inflation data initially supported cryptocurrencies, renewed military developments shifted investors’ attention back to geopolitical risks.

Earlier in the day, the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) announced on X that it had completed a 90-minute wave of strikes targeting coastal defense systems and cruise missile storage and launch sites on Greater Tunb Island. According to CENTCOM, the operation was intended to reduce Iran’s ability to threaten commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

Hours later, CENTCOM announced another escalation. In a separate post on X, the command said U.S. forces launched a second wave of strikes at 3 p.m. ET, targeting Iranian military capabilities used to threaten vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz. CENTCOM described the waterway as vital to global commerce and said the operation was carried out under the direction of the U.S. Commander in Chief.

At 3 p.m. ET, U.S. forces launched operations for a second wave of strikes today against Iran. The strikes are targeting Iranian military capabilities used to threaten vessels freely transiting through the Strait of Hormuz, an international waterway vital to global commerce. The…

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) July 15, 2026 CENTCOM stated that the strikes further reduced Iran’s capability to threaten commercial shipping passing through the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most important energy trade routes. The latest operation follows several days of escalating military exchanges between Washington and Tehran, adding another layer of uncertainty for global financial markets.

crypto.news had earlier reported that cryptocurrencies strengthened after U.S. PPI inflation figures came in below economists’ expectations, reinforcing hopes that inflation pressures may continue easing. However, those gains faded as developments surrounding the U.S.-Iran conflict became the dominant market catalyst.

Prediction markets point to limited optimism for diplomacy Beyond price action, prediction markets continue to indicate low expectations for a diplomatic breakthrough this month.

Data from crypto-based prediction platform Polymarket shows traders currently assign only a 25% probability that another round of U.S.-Iran peace talks will take place before the end of July. Although prediction markets do not guarantee future outcomes, they offer a real-time view of participant expectations based on active trading.

Source: Polymarket Attention is also turning toward Iran’s senior leadership for additional guidance on the country’s position. Mohammad Qalibaf, identified as Iran’s top negotiator in the referenced reports, is expected to issue a statement later today addressing the ongoing conflict and recent military developments.

For now, financial markets remain caught between improving U.S. inflation data and rising geopolitical uncertainty. While softer inflation initially supported demand for Bitcoin and other digital assets, Iran’s rejection of negotiations, continued U.S. military strikes, and uncertainty surrounding future diplomatic efforts have kept traders focused on geopolitical headlines as the next major driver of market sentiment.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

SHA-256 is a cryptographic hash function developed by the NSA in 2001 that converts any input into a fixed 256-bit output, serving as the foundation of Bitcoin’s proof-of-work consensus mechanism. Bitcoin uses double SHA-256 hashing, applying the algorithm twice to each block header to mitigate potential vulnerabilities, including length extension attacks that could compromise single-pass implementations. As of 2026, the Bitcoin network processes approximately 800 exahashes per second, with each hash attempt representing a single double SHA-256 computation on an 80-byte block header. Brute-force collision attacks against SHA-256 would require calculating at least 2 to the power of 128 hashes, a process estimated to take over 17 billion years at current network speeds. SHA-256 operates as a one-way function, meaning outputs cannot be reverse-engineered to reveal original inputs, making blockchain transaction records tamper-proof once confirmed by the mining network. Every Bitcoin transaction, every mined block, and every wallet address depends on a single cryptographic function: SHA-256. Developed by the U.S. National Security Agency in 2001 as part of the SHA-2 family, this algorithm transforms any data input into a fixed 256-bit string of characters. 

Satoshi Nakamoto chose SHA-256 as the core hashing algorithm for Bitcoin, embedding it into nearly every layer of the protocol, as detailed by the Spark SHA-256 reference. The same algorithm also secures services ranging from Amazon Web Services to the Apple App Store, according to CoinGecko’s security analysis. 

This article explains how SHA-256 works, why it matters for Bitcoin’s security model, and what threats could challenge it.

How SHA-256 Works Inside Bitcoin Mining SHA-256 takes an input of any length and produces a fixed-size 256-bit (32-byte) output, represented as a 64-character hexadecimal string.

The algorithm is deterministic: the same input always produces the same output. Even a single-bit change in the input produces a completely different hash, a property known as the avalanche effect, as Spark’s documentation explains.

In Bitcoin mining, miners construct a block header containing the previous block hash, a Merkle root of transactions, a timestamp, a difficulty target, and a nonce. They compute the double SHA-256 of this 80-byte header, incrementing the nonce until the resulting hash falls below the current difficulty target.

A valid block hash must start with a specific number of leading zeros, as described in the Komodo Platform’s technical overview.

The double hashing is deliberate. Bitcoin applies SHA-256 twice to each input: the output of the first computation becomes the input for the second.

This additional layer mitigates potential vulnerabilities such as the length extension attack, which could allow an attacker to append data to a message and compute a valid hash without knowing the original content, according to the Nervos knowledge base.

SHA-256 and the Scale of Bitcoin’s Hash Rate As of 2026, Bitcoin miners compute approximately 800 exahashes per second (EH/s) across the global network, as Spark reported. Each of those 800 quintillion attempts per second is a single double SHA-256 operation on an 80-byte block header.

The scale is difficult to comprehend: 800 EH/s means the network performs more computations every second than there are grains of sand on Earth.

This computational power is driven by application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) designed solely for SHA-256 hashing. ASICs replaced earlier GPU-based mining because general-purpose graphics processors could not compete with purpose-built chips, as Komodo Platform noted. 

The transition to ASICs increased mining efficiency but also raised concerns about centralization within the mining industry. The 800 EH/s figure represents a roughly 33% increase from the approximately 600 EH/s peak recorded in early 2024, according to research published by arXiv. 

This growth reflects continued ASIC deployment despite Bitcoin’s April 2024 halving, which cut block rewards from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC. The willingness of miners to invest in additional hardware at reduced reward levels suggests strong long-term confidence in Bitcoin’s price trajectory.

Why SHA-256 Remains Secure Against Current Threats SHA-256 provides 128 bits of security against collision attacks. A collision occurs when two different inputs produce the same hash output. Finding such a collision by brute force would require calculating at least 2^128 hashes.

Even at Bitcoin’s current 800 EH/s rate, that process would take over 17 billion years, well beyond the estimated age of the universe, as the arXiv Tax Policy Handbook for Crypto Assets calculated.

SHA-256 uses 64 rounds of mathematical operations involving bitwise rotations, additions, and logical functions, according to CoinGecko’s analysis. The algorithm’s one-way property means outputs cannot be reverse-engineered to reveal original inputs.

No practical attack against SHA-256 has been demonstrated. The older SHA-1 algorithm was broken in 2017, but SHA-256’s significantly larger bit space makes it exponentially harder to compromise.

Quantum computing represents the most frequently discussed theoretical threat to SHA-256. A sufficiently powerful quantum computer using Grover’s algorithm could theoretically reduce the brute-force search space from 2^128 to 2^64 operations.

However, 2^64 operations remain astronomically large, and no quantum computer capable of this exists at a practical scale. CoinGecko’s researchers concluded that quantum machines would ultimately still be unable to feasibly crack SHA-256 with current and near-future technology.

Regulatory Implications SHA-256’s security properties directly affect how regulators evaluate Bitcoin’s viability as a reserve asset. The U.S. Strategic Bitcoin Reserve executive order in March 2025 cited Bitcoin’s track record of never having been hacked.

That claim rests on SHA-256’s integrity. If the algorithm were compromised, forfeited holdings in the reserve could be at risk, making hash function security a matter of federal policy.

What’s Next? The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has begun standardizing post-quantum cryptographic algorithms. Bitcoin developers are monitoring these developments, though any transition from SHA-256 would require a network-wide consensus upgrade.

For now, SHA-256 remains the industry gold standard for cryptographic hashing. Its 25-year track record without a practical attack continues to anchor Bitcoin’s security model.

FAQs What does SHA-256 stand for?
SHA-256 stands for Secure Hash Algorithm 256-bit, a cryptographic function developed by the U.S. National Security Agency in 2001 as part of the SHA-2 family of algorithms.

Why does Bitcoin use double SHA-256 instead of single hashing?
Bitcoin applies SHA-256 twice to block headers to mitigate length extension attacks, where an attacker could append data to a message and compute valid hashes without knowing the original content.

How fast is the Bitcoin network at computing SHA-256 hashes?
As of 2026, the Bitcoin network computes approximately 800 exahashes per second, with each attempt representing a double SHA-256 operation performed by specialized ASIC mining hardware worldwide.

Can SHA-256 be reversed to find the original input data?
No, SHA-256 is a one-way function designed so that outputs cannot be reverse-engineered to reveal original inputs, making it computationally infeasible to derive data from hashes alone.

Has SHA-256 ever been hacked or broken?
No practical attack against SHA-256 has been demonstrated since its publication in 2001, though the older SHA-1 algorithm was successfully broken through collision attacks in 2017.

What is a collision attack against a hash function?
A collision attack finds two different inputs that produce the same hash output, but doing so against SHA-256 requires computing at least 2^128 hashes, which would take billions of years.

Could quantum computers break SHA-256 in the future?
Quantum computers using Grover’s algorithm could theoretically reduce SHA-256’s search space, but the remaining computational requirements would still be astronomically large and currently remain infeasible.

References Spark (2026). “SHA-256 Hash Generator.” Spark. CoinGecko (September 2025). “SHA-256: How Bitcoin Achieves Unbreakable Security.” CoinGecko. Komodo Platform (April 2025). “SHA-256 Cryptographic Hash Algorithm.” Komodo Platform. arXiv (March 2024). “Tax Policy Handbook for Crypto Assets.” arXiv.

Researchers at Stanford University and Singapore Management University found that Polymarket’s five-minute Bitcoin prediction markets create incentives for traders to manipulate spot prices around settlement, allowing sophisticated participants to profit at the expense of retail traders.

The study examined contracts in which traders bet on whether Bitcoin’s price would end above or below a predetermined level after five minutes. Because the contracts settle using Chainlink price feeds based on Bitcoin’s price at the end of each trading window, traders have an incentive to influence the spot market immediately before settlement.

Analyzing trading activity before and after Polymarket introduced the contracts in July 2024, the researchers found sharp increases in Bitcoin spot-market order flow just before settlement, followed by rapid price reversals, which were consistent with settlement-price manipulation.

The study estimated that the behavior transferred about $1.28 million from ordinary traders to manipulators during the sample period. The researchers said extending contract durations from five minutes to 15 minutes largely eliminated the effect.

The researchers said the results do not indicate prediction markets are inherently vulnerable to manipulation, arguing instead that settlement design can reduce the risk. They pointed to longer settlement windows and alternative pricing methods, such as time-weighted average prices, as potential solutions.

The findings could extend beyond crypto. The paper notes that traditional exchanges, including Nasdaq and Cboe, have proposed event contracts tied to asset prices, making contract design an increasingly important consideration as prediction markets expand into regulated financial markets. 

World Cup fuels prediction market growthPrediction markets posted record trading volumes in June as the expanded 2026 FIFA World Cup fueled activity across the sector. According to DefiLlama data, Kalshi processed about $9.4 billion in trading volume during the month, while Polymarket International handled roughly $4.3 billion.

The platforms’ World Cup winner markets have since generated more than $5.4 billion in combined trading volume, with Polymarket processing about $4.25 billion and Kalshi about $1.2 billion, according to data from the two platforms at the time of writing.

World Cup winner bets on Polymarket. Source: Polymarket

The sector’s growth has coincided with mounting legal scrutiny. Several US states have challenged companies, including Kalshi and Polymarket, this year, while the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has argued that federally regulated event contracts fall under its “exclusive jurisdiction” rather than state gambling laws.

The dispute is now moving through the federal courts, and legal observers have said conflicting appellate rulings could eventually prompt the US Supreme Court to decide whether states or the CFTC have primary authority over prediction markets.

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

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.

Bitcoin is having another one of its family arguments, and this time it’s about what kind of data belongs on the blockchain. BIP-110, a proposed soft fork that would restrict non-financial data in Bitcoin transactions, is heading toward its mandatory signaling phase in early August with almost no miner backing and a community split that echoes the nastiest governance fight in Bitcoin’s history.

Miner support for BIP-110 has hovered between 0.3% and 0.4% since signaling began on December 1, 2025. To put that in context, the proposal needs 55% miner support for early lock-in. It’s not even in the same zip code.

What BIP-110 actually does Authored by developer Dathon Ohm, BIP-110 would constrain the storage of non-monetary data on Bitcoin’s blockchain for roughly one year. The proposal would grandfather existing data already on-chain. It’s not trying to erase history, just change the rules going forward, at least for about 12 months.

Opponents see it very differently. Blockstream CEO Adam Back and MicroStrategy founder Michael Saylor have both pushed back against BIP-110, viewing it as a dangerous consensus intervention. Their argument boils down to a philosophical point: Bitcoin’s strength comes from its resistance to top-down rule changes, and restricting what kinds of transactions are “allowed” sets a precedent that could be weaponized later.

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The activation timeline and why it matters BIP-110 signaling on bit 4 has been live since December 2025, but the proposal is now approaching the stages where things get real. Mandatory signaling is projected to begin around block 961,632, estimated to land between August 7 and August 15, 2026. If the proposal somehow clears that hurdle, enforcement could follow near block 965,664 in September 2026.

The activation strategy borrows from the UASF playbook, the same user-activated soft fork approach that played a pivotal role during the 2017 Blocksize Wars. Back then, a minority of nodes threatened to reject blocks that didn’t signal for SegWit, effectively forcing miners to comply or risk mining on a minority chain.

Node adoption sits in the low single digits, concentrated almost entirely among users running Bitcoin Knots rather than the far more popular Bitcoin Core client. On the mining side, no major pool has shown meaningful interest. F2Pool, one of the largest mining operations in the world, has given no indication of support. The only visible signals have come from small operators like Barefoot Mining, which barely registers as a rounding error in Bitcoin’s total hashrate.

Echoes of the Blocksize Wars The Blocksize Wars of 2015-2017 pitted those who wanted bigger blocks against those who preferred a more conservative approach to scaling. That conflict ultimately led to the Bitcoin Cash fork and established an informal precedent: changing Bitcoin’s consensus rules requires overwhelming agreement, and attempts to force changes through without it get rejected.

BIP-110 is testing whether that precedent holds in reverse. Instead of expanding what Bitcoin can do, it’s trying to restrict it. And it’s doing so through the same UASF mechanism that small-block advocates used successfully almost a decade ago, just with a fraction of the support.

What this means for investors BIP-110 is almost certainly going to fail on the primary Bitcoin chain. Sub-1% miner signaling seven months into the process, with mandatory activation weeks away, means the proposal has no realistic path to consensus-level adoption. The most likely outcome is that BIP-110 either fizzles out entirely or results in a tiny minority chain that attracts negligible economic activity.

Investors should watch for two things. First, whether any major mining pool breaks ranks and signals for BIP-110 before the August deadline, which would fundamentally change the calculus. Second, whether the debate spills over into broader market sentiment around Bitcoin’s governance model.

The inscription economy that BIP-110 targets, including Ordinals and BRC-20 tokens, has become a meaningful source of miner fee revenue. Restricting that activity would reduce transaction fee income for miners, which helps explain why pools aren’t exactly rushing to support a proposal that would shrink their revenue.

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

Cryptocurrency analytics company Glassnode stated that the long-running bottom-forming process in the Bitcoin market is beginning to strengthen, but a sustained recovery requires the activation of spot market demand.

According to Glassnode’s analysis, Bitcoin reacted more strongly than major stock indices to the better-than-expected US inflation data released last week. The company noted that this was one of the strongest price reactions Bitcoin has given to positive macroeconomic developments in recent weeks.

The analytics company noted that the relationship between Bitcoin and stock markets has weakened, while the inverse correlation with the US dollar has strengthened. According to Glassnode, this indicates that global liquidity conditions, rather than risk appetite, are becoming the determining factor in Bitcoin’s price.

The report stated that long-term investor capitulation, a major source of selling pressure on Bitcoin throughout the year, has begun to decline from its peak. It also noted that profit-taking has largely dried up, and the supply from the June lows has been met by broad-based buying.

Glassnode noted that the ready-to-sell supply, which has previously limited every rise in Bitcoin, has begun to thin. This development, it was stated, allows the price to retest the resistance zones ahead.

According to Glassnode, Bitcoin’s biggest resistance will be the Short-Term Investor Cost Base, which is around $69,000. This level represents the average break-even price for investors who have recently entered the market.

The company stated that a strong market reaction could be seen if Bitcoin reaches the $69,000 region. For the price to rise above this level with the support of spot buying and maintain its position there is critical to confirming the recovery.

The analysis highlighted that investors in derivatives markets have begun reducing their short positions, but this move has not yet been supported by buying in the spot market. Glassnode stated that the missing piece in the current recovery outlook is strong and sustainable spot demand.

Glassnode warned that despite positive signals, a bullish move in Bitcoin has not yet been definitively confirmed. Key risks cited include continued outflows from spot Bitcoin ETFs, the failure of derivatives market position unwinding to translate into spot purchases, and volatility remaining at low levels.

According to the company, the key signal that will positively change the current market outlook is when spot market purchases push Bitcoin above the short-term investor cost basis and the price holds above that level.

Conversely, a renewed acceleration of loss-making sales by long-term investors, or a rejection of Bitcoin from the resistance around $69,000 and a retracement towards the current price level, could drag the market back into its current horizontal trading range.

Glassnode stated that while a price base has largely formed in Bitcoin, the buying momentum needed to sustain the uptrend has not yet emerged, commenting, “The base has formed, but the continuation of the movement has not yet arrived.”

*This is not investment advice.

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In a recent statement, Strategy Inc. CEO Phong Le reaffirmed the company’s dedication to remaining a major Bitcoin purchaser despite existing debt concerns. Le highlighted that the company would only start evaluating risks associated with its debt if Bitcoin’s value fell to a range of $8,000 to $10,000. This statement underscores Strategy’s confidence in its financial stability and its commitment to its Bitcoin strategy. As the world’s largest corporate Bitcoin holder, Strategy Inc. currently holds 843,738 Bitcoin, valued at approximately $69,000 per coin. The company’s robust balance sheet appears to reassure market participants, even as the firm navigates significant debt obligations.

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Key Takeaways Strategy’s CEO Phong Le’s statement appears to reinforce the company’s ongoing commitment to Bitcoin purchases, with a focus on financial resilience. The company’s current financial position suggests it could cover its $6 billion debt even if Bitcoin prices dropped significantly. Market pricing implies a stable outlook for Strategy’s Bitcoin strategy, with no immediate debt-related concerns unless Bitcoin drops sharply. What to Watch Market participants will be closely observing any fluctuations in Bitcoin prices, specifically any movement toward the $8,000 to $10,000 range, as this could impact Strategy’s financial strategy. Additionally, any announcements from Strategy regarding further Bitcoin acquisitions or changes in financial strategy could influence market sentiment. The company’s financial health and Bitcoin strategy remain pivotal indicators for the future trajectory of its stock price, particularly as the December 31 deadline for STRC hitting $100 approaches.

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Term Structure

Contract Odds Δ since publish Volume 24h December 31 46% — — View market → September 30 24.5% — — View market →

Crypto liquidation startup Glacis Labs completes $6.8 million seed round financing.

Crypto clearing startup Glacis Labs has closed a $6.8 million seed round. The round was led by Lightspeed Faction, with participation from Franklin Templeton, Coinbase Ventures, A.GAIN (formerly IDC Ventures), Protein Capital, and Techni Ventures, structured as an equity-plus-token warrant deal. The funding will primarily be used to expand its core product, the ZeroDelta platform, and support the growth of its engineering, compliance, and marketing teams. ZeroDelta is a multi-chain clearing platform that facilitates matching, netting, and final settlement of cross-chain digital assets. It currently focuses on serving stablecoins and has processed over $1 billion in cumulative trading volume to date.

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The United States will issue a $1 Trump gold coin to commemorate the 250th anniversary of its founding.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced today that the U.S. Mint will produce a $1 commemorative "gold coin" — gold in appearance but containing no actual gold or precious metals — to mark the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. The obverse features a portrait of President Trump in a suit and tie, paired with the inscriptions "LIBERTY," "IN GOD WE TRUST," and the dates 1776-2026; the reverse displays the U.S. Great Seal eagle, marked with "$1" and "250." The coin is expected to be released this fall. The move breaks the longstanding tradition that living presidents typically do not appear on U.S. currency, with Bessent describing it as a "lasting symbol of patriotism" and "a commemoration of the legacy of freedom."

4 hours ago

Trump: Data centers are a cash cow and one of the largest drivers of future job growth.

Trump posted that data centers are one of the biggest drivers of future job growth. They are large-scale, powerful, and have broad prospects, serving as cash cows for their respective states. However, for political reasons, the Governor of New York State terminated all data center projects under construction or planned in New York. These companies are now flocking to Alabama, Florida, Texas, Arizona, and many other states. The tax revenues and jobs brought by data centers are truly a huge source of wealth! New York State has made a bad decision. All this revenue and other benefits will flow to so-called "red states" (states dominated by the Republican Party) and some "blue states" (states dominated by the Democratic Party). These states not only have lower taxes but also can create record job opportunities. They will bear their own water and electricity costs, and the remaining funds will be returned to state governments and local communities. For the states and communities fortunate enough to secure data centers, these facilities are undoubtedly huge assets. New York State should immediately reverse its policy. We must never allow radical left-wing Democrats to make us lose data centers, artificial intelligence, and all these amazing new technologies, letting them fall into the hands of other countries!

4 hours ago

Goldman Sachs' View: Storage Market Shows Structural Shifts, Partial Replacement of DRAM by NAND for Cost Reduction Becomes a Practical Trend

Citirni analyst Jukan referenced Goldman Sachs’ monthly conference call remarks on the memory sector, noting clients’ strong resistance to DRAM price hikes approaching 30%, leading to a modest downward revision of third-quarter DRAM price growth expectations. Meanwhile, the outlook for NAND has grown more optimistic: AI-related KV cache offloading demand continues to exceed expectations, paired with an emerging trend of using NAND to replace expensive DRAM, further supporting NAND demand. The analyst holds a positive view on SK Hynix’s second-quarter performance, projecting revenue of approximately 85 trillion won and a gross margin of 63%. Relevant stocks include SK Hynix, Micron, and SanDisk. The commentary also reveals structural shifts in the memory market. Previously, explosive HBM demand from AI servers drove DRAM prices soaring, but once price increases hit the 30% threshold, clients began resisting further hikes, leading to a temporary slowdown in the pace of DRAM price growth. NAND is taking on a new role in AI infrastructure: KV cache is critical in inference scenarios, and using cheaper NAND to partially replace expensive DRAM to reduce costs is becoming a practical trend. This divergence also implies that internal capital rotation within the storage industry chain may continue; investors should exercise greater caution regarding short-term earnings expectations for DRAM-related stocks, while the fundamental improvement in the NAND segment may not yet be fully priced in.

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SpaceX falls below its $135 IPO price for the first time; US-listed space-related stocks decline across the board.

According to market data from BIT (bit.com), during U.S. stock intraday trading, SpaceX (SPCX) fell below its IPO price of $135 for the first time, currently trading at $133.6. U.S. space-related stocks declined across the board: AST SpaceMobile (ASTS) dropped 5.26%, Rocket Lab (RKLB) fell 3.4%, and Redwire (RDW) declined 3.4%.

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A certain address profited 23.75 million USDC via the Ostium exploit, then exchanged the funds for 12,085 ETH.

According to EmberCN’s monitoring, an hour and a half ago, the DeBank address under the username musti_akrep exploited a vulnerability on Perp DEX Ostium to gain 23.75 million USDC, transferred the funds to the Arbitrum blockchain, and immediately converted the USDC into 12,085 ETH at a purchase price of $1,965.

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$45.8 Billion In Market Losses Wiped Out Every Dollar Of New MoneyBlackRock attracted $15.1 billion in fresh crypto capital over 12 months, but $45.8 billion in market depreciation overwhelmed every dollar of those inflows, shrinking the business from $79.6 billion to $48.8 billion.

The second quarter made things worse.

What Does BlackRock’s Broader Business Look Like?Crypto was the one weak spot in an otherwise record quarter.

BlackRock posted $15.3 trillion in total assets under management after attracting $192 billion in net inflows, beating Wall Street expectations with adjusted earnings per share of $13.91 on $7.08 billion in revenue. 

Crypto currently generates $40 million in base fees and securities lending, less than 1% of total fee revenue. 

BlackRock is targeting $500 million in annual crypto revenue by 2030, a more than tenfold increase from today.

What Is BlackRock’s Long-Term Crypto Bet?Chief Financial Officer Martin Small pointed to 5 billion crypto wallets as a new distribution channel for traditional investment products. 

“We want to build a digital wallet native asset manager,” Small said on the earnings call.

Where Does BLK Stand Technically?BLK trades at $1,094.68, sitting 7.9% above its 20-day SMA at $1,012.78 and 3.1% above its 200-day SMA at $1,059.81. 

MACD sits above its signal line with a positive histogram, pointing to improving momentum after the earnings pop.

Key levels for BLK $1,107.50 — resistance just above current price where the rally may stall $1,030.00 — support near the 50-day SMA, first line of defense on any pullback Image: Shutterstock

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In this patch of your weekly Dispatch:Altcoins round-upApple’s stock recordBitcoin’s starting recovery?Market cast

BTC: Bullish momentum buildsBitcoin's weekly chart is showing bullish momentum developing. Price has moved back above the 200-period SMA, a key long-term trend indicator. The RSI, a momentum oscillator, sits in neutral territory, while the Stochastic, another momentum oscillator, has crossed above the 20-level threshold – a move that could signal a trend reversal. The MACD, a trend and momentum indicator, has its signal lines edging close to a bullish crossover, adding to the constructive tone.

The daily chart tells a similarly bullish story. Price has crossed above the 50-period SMA and is now heading toward the upper Bollinger Band – a volatility indicator. RSI remains neutral, and while the Stochastic lines sit in overbought territory, they show no signs of fading momentum. The MACD histogram, meanwhile, sits comfortably in positive territory – all pointing to bullish momentum across both timeframes.

Key levels to watch: On the downside, immediate support sits around $62,000, with the next significant zone near $58,000–$59,000; the daily middle Bollinger Band could also serve as dynamic support. To the upside, the first resistance comes in around $65,000, followed by $67,000.

The big idea

Bitcoin's CPI moment: Macro comes back into focusTime and again this year, Bitcoin has gone looking for a catalyst, only to run headlong into geopolitics instead. Every attempt at a clean, rates-driven story got knocked off course by fresh friction out of the Middle East. Tuesday’s US CPI report gave Bitcoin a real one — and a friendly one at that.

June's headline inflation cooled sharply to 3.5% annually, well below the 3.8% consensus and down from 4.2% in May, with prices actually falling 0.4% on the month — the largest one-month drop since April 2020, and well past the mild 0.1% decline economists had expected. Core CPI told the same story: flat month-over-month against expectations for a rise, pulling the annual core rate down to 2.6% from 2.9% — a much bigger step toward the Fed's target than anyone had priced in.

That's not the "calm, in-line" outcome the market had been bracing for — it's a genuine downside surprise, and Bitcoin treated it as one. BTC quickly reacted by reaching toward $64,000 right after the release, climbing roughly 1% from around $62,800.

The bigger story is what it did to rate expectations. Markets are now pricing an 83% chance the Fed holds rates steady at the July 28–29 meeting, versus just 17% odds of a hike — a sharp reversal from the mood following Governor Waller's hawkish comments last week, when a hike looked like a live possibility. With a rate hike now largely off the table, one of the biggest overhangs on Bitcoin this year has meaningfully eased.

There's backup from other corners of the analyst community too. Standard Chartered reiterated its $100,000 year-end Bitcoin target this week, calling current levels near $64,000 "a screaming buy." Bitwise strikes a similar note, arguing the industry is twice the size it was at the last cycle's bottom despite bear-market prices, and flagging July's historically strong seasonality — Bitcoin has averaged a 10.7% gain in the month — as another reason for optimism. CryptoQuant adds to that seasonality case: in past bear-market years like 2018 and 2022, Bitcoin rallied roughly 17-20% in July alone, with the firm noting early signs that demand is already re-igniting off the recent lows. The on-chain picture backs up that optimism as Nexo analyst Dessislava Ianeva notes that spot selling pressure has faded. More on that in this week’s data story below.

If the last two issues were about regulatory clarity, this week looks like it's shaping up to be about macroeconomic clarity instead. Tuesday’s numbers make that label easier to defend: a clean downside surprise on both headline and core inflation, paired with rate-hike odds falling to just 17%, removes a real source of uncertainty rather than simply confirming expectations. That said, new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh struck a notably hawkish tone in his first Congressional testimony the same day, insisting the Fed has "no tolerance" for persistently high inflation and pushing back on any expectation of a policy pivot. One cool print hasn't changed the Fed's messaging, even if it's changed the market's odds. It's still one data point, and Bitcoin will likely keep reacting to whatever comes out of the Gulf too — but rates just handed the market a genuinely bullish tailwind to work with.

Bottom line: June inflation came in well below expectations on every measure, and the Fed now looks unlikely to hike this month — a clear, dovish surprise that gives Bitcoin's macro-driven recovery case its best data point yet, with BTC quickly reacting toward $64,000 right after the release.

Blue chips

Ethereum outperforms as its next chapter comes into focusETH was one of the better performers recently, up over to roughly $1,770 at the start of the week, as Bitcoin held firm above $63,000. That put it ahead of most majors, and it came despite wobbly AI stocks and a stronger dollar – two things that usually drag crypto down with them. Ethereum didn't just hold up; it led the pack.

The timing is fitting. Vitalik Buterin just dropped his vision for "Lean Ethereum", a multi-year rebuild he's calling the network's third major era – right up there with the Merge. The headline: a data storage redesign that could slash fees for everyday tokens and apps by 10x or more, no rewrites required. Quantum resistance and privacy are also getting fast-tracked as core priorities, not afterthoughts. Put together, it's a good reminder that Ethereum's momentum isn't only about price – there's real groundwork being laid for the next decade.

TradFi trends

Apple reaches ATH on AI memoryWhile Bitcoin watches the Fed, Apple is riding a different macro story — and it's paying off. Shares hit an all-time high on July 13, closing at $317.31 (a $4.7 trillion market cap), as an AI-driven memory chip shortage splits the smartphone market in two.

The cause: memory chips now cost nearly triple last year's price, as hyperscalers buy up supply for AI training. That's gutted margins for budget phone makers while barely touching Apple, which locked in supply early. Global smartphone shipments fell 6.7% last quarter, but Apple's grew 15.3% — best in years, alongside Samsung as the only other top-five vendor to grow. Institutions had already positioned for it, adding roughly 1.24 billion shares ahead of the rebound. The open question: with the memory crunch expected to run into 2028, whether buyers keep absorbing Apple's rising costs — a test the July 30 earnings print should help answer.

The week's most interesting data story

Bitcoin’s clearest signs of recovery?This week's chart adds a useful data point to the macro story: the market may be working through its last bit of overhand supply. A key on-chain metric — the share of realized value coming from longer-term holders adjusting their positions, recently reached its highest level since December 2022. In practice, this reflects holders who've been through months of drawdown finally deciding to move on, a pattern that has historically shown up in the later stages of a market finding its footing rather than at the start of a fresh leg down.

That matters because this kind of activity tends to be one of the last steps in a market working through excess supply. Once that cohort finishes repositioning, there's less overhead pressure weighing on price, which can set the stage for a steadier recovery. 

The numbers

The week’s most interesting numbers$200,000 — A solo miner's payout from hitting a Bitcoin block with a hobbyist-grade Bitaxe, running just ~1 terahash per second for eight hours.

$50.85 billion — Cumulative net inflows into US spot Bitcoin ETFs since launch, a milestone that's held even through a choppy July.

$10.5 billion — Bitmine Immersion's ether treasury value, now the largest corporate ether stash and second only to Strategy's bitcoin position globally.

$3 billion — Strategy's USD reserve balance after a $450 million boost last week — funded via share sales, with its 843,775 BTC treasury untouched.

Hot topic

What the community is discussingFOMO time for XRP?

There is no stopping the long-term HODLER.

The power of Bitcoin as collateral.

Dispatch is a weekly publication by Nexo, designed to help you navigate and take action in the evolving world of digital assets. To share your Dispatch suggestions and comments, email us at [email protected].

Meme coins have faced $1.21 billion in cumulative net selling pressure on Binance since Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) made its last all-time high in October 2025.

Sustained Selling Pressure for Meme CoinsIn an X post on July 14, on-chain analytics firm CryptoQuant said the meme coins sector has remained under sustained selling despite occasional bursts of speculation.

Data highlighted the heavy risk appetite deterioration across crypto’s most speculative assets.

While Robinhood’s blockchain launch recently revived interest in meme coins, helping projects like CASHCAT reach a market capitalization of roughly $138 million, CryptoQuant noted that such rallies have been driven by novelty rather than sustained demand.

The significant net outflow underscores how severely meme coins tend to underperform during broader market corrections and serves as a reminder of the heightened capital-loss risk associated with the sector.

Why Meme Coins May Be GamblingIn an X post on July 14, crypto analyst Kevin echoed those concerns, saying the growing obsession with meme coins is making him reduce crypto’s weighting in his investment portfolio.

Kevin added that he expected retail participation to gradually rotate back toward Bitcoin after the previous cycle but instead believes much of the market has shifted toward speculative meme coin trading making it a gambling space.

"If the sector isn’t going to properly heal and instead continues to double down on memes, I see no choice but to take it less and less seriously as an investable asset class," he said, adding that exchanges have increasingly benefited from the trend.

In another X post, Kevin argued that more experienced crypto investors have shifted their attention toward artificial intelligence, robotics and quantum computing, while maintaining some Bitcoin exposure.

Many newer market participants are primarily focused on meme coin speculation, a trend Kevin believes will leave much of the broader altcoin market producing lower highs over successive cycles.

Also, many projects will eventual become "ghost chains" despite intermittent bull-market rallies.

Image: Shutterstock

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Nick Sawinyh on 15 Jul 2026

At 14:18 UTC on Wednesday, July 15, 2026, a single Arbitrum transaction bundled twenty calls into Ostium’s trading contracts and walked out with roughly $11.86 million in USDC. The recipient wallet had opened its first position minutes earlier with a rounding-error deposit. By the time most people saw the security alerts, the money was already moving out.

Ostium is one of the more credible names in on-chain real-world-asset trading: a perpetuals exchange for stocks, commodities, indices, and currencies, backed by General Catalyst and Jump Crypto. What makes it work is a custom price layer that decides what every trade settles at. That layer is exactly what got turned against it, and not on some exotic asset either.

This piece reflects what was verifiable on the afternoon of July 15, 2026, a few hours after the first transaction. The on-chain facts here (the transaction, the contracts, the amount that moved, the receiving wallet) are confirmed directly against block explorers and are cited below so you can check them yourself. What is not settled is the reconciled total loss and the exact authorization failure that made the attack possible; both await Ostium’s own accounting. Treat the confirmed transactions as bedrock and any single loss total as provisional until the team or an independent analyst publishes one.

What Is Ostium, and Why Does It Matter? Ostium is a decentralized perpetuals exchange on Arbitrum whose pitch is real-world assets: leveraged exposure to gold, oil, the S&P, EUR/USD, or individual equities, all from a self-custodial wallet, on markets that traditionally close at 4pm and gate retail behind brokers. It is one of the clearer product-market fits in the RWA narrative. It also lists the major crypto pairs, BTC and ETH among them, and that detail matters more than it looks.

The traction is real. Ostium was founded by Harvard alumni, raised a $3.5 million seed in 2023 led by General Catalyst and LocalGlobe (with SIG, DeFi Alliance, and Balaji Srinivasan among the backers), and in December 2025 added a $20 million Series A co-led by General Catalyst and Jump Crypto, bringing total funding to roughly $27.8 million. As of its December 2025 raise, Ostium had advertised more than $25 billion in cumulative trading volume, including around $5 billion in metals. On July 15, DefiLlama showed Ostium’s TVL near $63 million.

Traders’ collateral and the counterparty liquidity that pays out winning trades sit in Ostium’s vault, called the OLP (Ostium Liquidity Pool). Liquidity providers deposit USDC and, in effect, take the other side of the book. That vault is what an attacker wants to reach, and on July 15 someone found a path to it.

How Ostium Prices a Trade, and Where the Trust Sits To understand the exploit you have to understand how Ostium gets a price at all.

A crypto perp can read an on-chain price from deep DEX liquidity. Gold and Apple can’t be priced that way, because they don’t live on-chain. So Ostium built its own pull-based oracle system, with real-world-asset feeds operated by Stork Network and crypto feeds from Chainlink Data Streams. In a pull design, prices aren’t sitting on-chain continuously. Instead, a signed price report is delivered on-chain at the moment it’s needed: when a trade opens, when it closes, when a limit order or liquidation fires. Automated “keeper” or forwarder services carry those signed reports to the contract and trigger settlement.

This is a sensible architecture for assets that trade off-chain. It also concentrates enormous trust in one place. Whoever is authorized to submit a price report effectively decides the number your PnL is calculated against. If that authorization leaks, or if the check that a submitted price is fresh and legitimate is missing or weak, then the party feeding the price can trade against a number they chose. That is the failure surface, and it is a close cousin of the one that broke Resolv’s USR stablecoin in March, where a single privileged role could mint without on-chain limits.

The Exploit: What the Transaction Shows Here is what the chain shows for the primary transaction, 0x359f8c05…d4870e0, confirmed on both Arbiscan and Blockscout:

It succeeded at 14:18:48 UTC on July 15, 2026. It called executeBatch, running twenty calls that alternated between Ostium’s Trading contract (0x6D0bA1f9…7702411, which Arbiscan labels “Ostium: Trading”) and a contract named OstiumPrivatePriceUpKeep (0xB71ec9eB…3d36), the piece that delivers signed prices on-chain. USDC moved through Ostium’s Trading Storage, Trading Callbacks, and Vault contracts along the way. Every trade in the batch was on pairIndex 0. Ostium’s own subgraph maps pair 0 to BTC/USD, so this was not an exotic real-world-asset market. It was Bitcoin. The trade events show the position opened at a delivered price of exactly $5,000 and closed at roughly $60,000. Bitcoin does not move twelvefold inside one atomic transaction, so at least one of those prices was fabricated and delivered on demand; the exactly-round $5,000 open is the obvious tell. A single deposit of about 1,000 USDC went in. Roughly 11,861,520 USDC came back out to the attacker’s wallet. The same batch that opened and closed the trades also drove OstiumPrivatePriceUpKeep to deliver the $5,000 and $60,000 prices those trades settled against. Whoever sent it therefore held, or had usurped, the right to submit prices, and used it to stand on both sides at once: the price authority and the counterparty were the same operation. The batch came from 0xD1794196…85869 through an entry contract at 0xfE12F636…5bd2E; the trades and the payout belong to 0x321df194…bfd9.

You do not need anyone’s alert to read this. The prices are right there in the trade events: open a Bitcoin long at $5,000, close it near $60,000, collect the difference from the vault, and a ~1,000 USDC deposit comes back as ~$11.86 million. That is not an inference from fund flows, it is in the price fields the contracts recorded. What the trace cannot tell you is how the attacker was allowed to deliver those prices at all, whether a signing key was compromised, a malicious price upkeep was registered, or a validation check on submitted prices was missing or weak. That distinction is the whole post-mortem, and only Ostium can close it.

Here is the part that should unsettle people most. The attacker did this on BTC/USD, the most liquid and most easily cross-checked market Ostium runs, not on gold, not on a thinly traded stock, not on an overnight forex cross. If the pricing layer will accept $5,000 for Bitcoin, the asset was never the point. The authorization to submit a price was.

The Cashout The receiving wallet, 0x321df194…bfd9, is a fresh externally owned account with no prior history and no Arbiscan label yet. It took in the $11.86 million from the primary transaction and additional USDC from several sibling batch transactions sent the same way.

The money did not stay. A few hours later, the wallet held no USDC at all, just about 99.6 ETH (gas-scale, a low six figures) and a spoofed lookalike “ETH” token of the kind that gets airdropped to any address in the news. Where the stablecoin went from there, whether swapped, split across wallets, or bridged off Arbitrum, I did not trace, and the balance snapshot may not be complete. What is clear is that it moved out fast, which is the entire point of moving before a protocol can react. It is the same race Resolv’s attacker ran in March, and the same reason “we’ve paused the protocol” statements so often land after the funds are already gone.

How Big Was the Hit? This is where the honest answer is a range, not a headline.

Figure Value Status Largest single transaction ~$11.86M USDC to the attacker Tx confirmed on-chain; amount read from explorer transfer logs Additional sibling transactions Several, same pattern Confirmed they exist; total not cleanly summed Ostium TVL on July 15 ~$63M (DefiLlama) Live figure; may lag the incident So the floor is real: at least the better part of $12 million left in the primary transaction, going by the explorer transfer logs, and the same wallet pulled more through several sibling batches I did not fully sum. Loss estimates circulating on launch day ran higher, into the high teens of millions, alongside a “$34 million vault, 35% drained” framing. I could not confirm those numbers, and note that a $34 million liquidity vault could sit inside the ~$63 million total TVL DefiLlama shows, so even those two are not necessarily in conflict. The honest position is a confirmed floor and an open total until Ostium or an independent analyst publishes a reconciled figure.

The Uncomfortable Questions How did an attacker become authorized to submit prices? Everything about this incident routes back to that question. A pull oracle only works if the set of parties allowed to deliver signed prices is tightly controlled and their reports are validated on arrival. Whether the attacker obtained a legitimate signer key, got a malicious forwarder registered, or exploited a gap in how reports are checked, the outcome is the same: they got to name the price that settled their own trades.

Where were the on-chain guardrails? The recurring lesson of 2026’s exploits is that off-chain trust needs on-chain limits behind it. Was there a bound on how far a settlement price could deviate from the last accepted one? A freshness or timestamp check strict enough to reject a “future-dated” report? A per-block or per-account cap on vault payouts? The batched, atomic nature of the theft suggests at least one of those checks was missing or bypassable.

What about the audits? This was not an unreviewed protocol. Zellic audited the contracts in early 2024 and returned 19 findings, two of them critical, with the price-upkeep and vault contracts in scope; it even raised upkeep-specific issues at the time, one titled “Chainlink feed ID not checked in upkeep.” Pashov Audit Group ran a further review in September 2025, and Ostium also lists a ThreeSigma audit, a Chaos Labs economic audit, and an Immunefi bug bounty. Two things stand out anyway. Zellic’s 2024 engagement expressly put “key custody” and “infrastructure relating to the project” out of scope, which is close to where the abuse of a registered PriceUpKeep would live. And the September 2025 review covered only the trading-engine contracts, not any price-upkeep or vault contract. The exact component the attacker used, OstiumPrivatePriceUpKeep, was either reviewed years ago on an older design or left out of the most recent pass entirely. Audits cut risk; they do not certify its absence, least of all for the price-authorization plumbing that sits at the very edge of what a contract audit covers.

The Asset Was Never the Point The intuitive worry about an RWA perp is the exotic feed. Gold, a single stock, an overnight forex cross: none of them have a deep on-chain market to check a submitted price against, so a bad number is harder to catch. That worry is legitimate and worth keeping. But it is not what happened here. The attack ran on Bitcoin, where a fabricated $5,000 print should have been the easiest thing in the world to reject. The weak point sat upstream of the asset, in whatever governs who may submit a price and whether the contracts bound-check it before paying out. An RWA venue carries that risk on top of the exotic-feed risk, not instead of it.

Ostium is not a fly-by-night project. It has real funding, real volume, and a design many people saw as one of the better expressions of the RWA thesis, this site’s coverage of onchain forex and tokenized metals included. That is exactly why the incident matters. A well-funded, name-backed team let its pricing layer accept $5,000 for the most-watched asset in crypto. The custom-oracle problem is not a rough edge on some immature protocol, and it is not confined to the exotic assets everyone was worried about. It is a category risk that the whole “bring global markets on-chain” movement has to solve before it asks users to post real size.

What Happens Next In the hours after the attack, Ostium had not posted an official statement or a loss figure. Expect the usual sequence: an acknowledgment, a pause of affected functions, a claim that the team is investigating and tracing funds, and eventually a post-mortem. The questions that post-mortem needs to answer are specific: how price-submission authorization was secured, what validation a submitted report had to pass, whether a key was compromised or a forwarder maliciously registered, and what caps or circuit breakers stood between a “profitable” trade and the vault.

For anyone with funds in Ostium, particularly OLP liquidity providers who sit on the counterparty side of every trade, the practical advice is the same it always is in the first hours of an incident: check your exposure directly, watch Ostium’s official channels rather than secondhand figures, and don’t assume a stated total is final.

And for everyone building or allocating in RWA land, file this next to Resolv. The mechanisms differ, but both trace back to the same weak point: a single privileged component, trusted off-chain, with too little standing between it and the money on-chain. RWA protocols are lining up to put a lot more of the world’s assets behind components exactly like that. This is what it looks like when one of them gives.

US PPI Lands Soft, Fed Rate Hike Odds Lower as Bitcoin Price Reclaims $65,000

Strategy, which had stated for a long time that it would not sell Bitcoin but subsequently sold BTC twice, has now formalized its sales.

While this situation reduces the risk of the company’s sales falling due to the BTC price, Strategy CEO Phong Le stated that they have not abandoned their BTC buying strategy.

Speaking to Bloomberg, Strategy CEO Phong Le stated that the company’s financial structure is strong and that its BTC strategy and purchases are not putting pressure on the company.

Lee stated that the Bitcoin price and purchases would need to fall to levels between $8,000 and $10,000 for it to create significant debt pressure on the company.

Le stated, “When Bitcoin approaches the $8,000-$10,000 range, we need to assess some risks related to our debt. However, at current levels, we are extremely confident in our balance sheet.”

The renowned CEO, recalling Bitcoin’s past experience of weathering numerous sharp declines and bull cycles, stated that Strategy has remained afloat despite challenging market conditions in both 2022 and this year, and will likely weather this bear market as well.

He also added that the company is preparing for its next growth cycle.

The Company’s USD Reserves Reach $3 Billion! The CEO announced that the company’s cash reserves have increased to approximately $3 billion thanks to a recent share sale.

Le stated that this step was taken specifically to respond to the higher liquidity demands of preferred shareholders, and that the company’s priority was to bring the nominal value of the preferred stock, STRC, back to the $100 level.

He then added that new preferred shares would be issued and a significant portion of the funds raised would be used again to purchase Bitcoin.

We Don’t Control the Bitcoin Market! Addressing criticisms that Strategy has excessive influence over the Bitcoin market, Le emphasized that the Bitcoin it holds represents only 4% of the total supply.

Le, noting that the daily Bitcoin trading volume exceeds $30 billion, pointed out that the price rose despite Strategy recently selling approximately $200 million worth of Bitcoin, indicating that the company is not driving the market alone.

We Haven’t Given Up, We Will Continue Buying Bitcoin! The renowned CEO emphasized that despite the company’s recent sales, it has no plans to abandon its Bitcoin accumulation strategy and aims to remain the largest buyer of BTC.

“We’re not going anywhere. Our goal is to become the biggest buyer of Bitcoin for the foreseeable future.”

*This is not investment advice.

Follow our Telegram and Twitter account now for exclusive news, analytics and on-chain data!

On-chain analytics platform Glassnode said in a report that top traders on the Hyperliquid exchange are aggressively going long on BTC. Their long positions are currently at a high level in Glassnode’s historical records, exceeding the level hit when Bitcoin previously rallied to roughly $83,000, signaling that speculative long demand remains robust in the market at current price levels.

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Bitcoin spent a full week locked between $60,000 and $64,000, absorbing a war scare, a wave of liquidations and a hawkish Federal Reserve. On July 15 it left the box upward at $64,740, and unlike most headline-driven pops, this one brought expanding volume with it. What follows is the structure of the move and the two conditions that decide whether it becomes a trend.

The Structure: a box, a catalyst, a break BTC trades at $64,740 as of July 15, 2026, per CoinGecko, up 3.3% in 24 hours and 4.4% across the week. Market cap: $1.299 trillion.

The week-long range was clean: repeated defenses of the $60,000 area on the downside, repeated stalls near $64,000 on top. Ranges that tight, held through news that violent, usually resolve with force in one direction, and the direction chose up. The trigger was macro, not crypto-native: June consumer prices fell 0.4% on the month, the largest one-month decline since April 2020, with annual inflation at 3.5% versus expectations near 3.8% and core inflation flat, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Markets moved from pricing rate pressure toward pricing a Fed on hold, and risk assets repriced accordingly.

A breakout born from a data print carries a specific vulnerability: it inherits the data’s fragility. The June inflation relief came overwhelmingly from falling energy prices, and the geopolitical backdrop that crushed oil in June has already begun reversing. If oil keeps climbing, the market will start fading the very number that fueled this move. That is not a prediction. It is the identified risk.

The Confirmation Test Two conditions separate a real range break from a headline pop, and both are measurable within days.

Condition one: acceptance above $64,000. The old range top has to become the new floor. A daily close back inside the box would mark this as a failed breakout, and failed breakouts from week-long ranges typically travel to the opposite side of the range, which puts $60,000 back on the table. Above $64,000, the next reference is the round $65,000, and beyond it the zone where June’s breakdown began, in the mid $60,000s, where trapped buyers from the last leg down are waiting to exit at break-even. That overhead supply is the honest reason not to expect a straight line.

Condition two: volume persistence. The breakout day printed $32.7 billion of volume against $27.3 billion the prior day, an expansion of roughly 20%. That is what genuine participation looks like at the moment of a break. The tell over the next sessions: if volume holds elevated while price consolidates above $64,000, positioning is building. If volume collapses back while price hovers, the move was a one-day event reaction and the box walls start pulling again.

The Data Behind the Move The single most important number in this report is not on the Bitcoin chart. It is minus 0.4%, the monthly CPI change, because it flipped the macro assumption underneath every risk asset. A market that spent June bracing for a hawkish Fed under its new chairman suddenly has room to breathe, and rate-sensitive assets, crypto first among them, repriced within hours.

The counterweight belongs in the same paragraph. One cool print does not end an inflation fight, the Fed’s own June projections leaned hawkish, and the ceasefire whose oil-price collapse produced this CPI number is publicly fraying. The bullish read and the bearish read currently share a single variable: the price of oil. Watch it alongside the chart.

Bottom Line The breakout is real on today’s evidence: a clean range break, a verified catalyst, and volume expanding into the move. It is unconfirmed by the only test that matters, time above $64,000. Acceptance above the old box top with sustained volume opens the path toward $65,000 and the mid $60,000s supply zone. A close back inside the box cancels everything and re-opens $60,000. The chart has stated its terms. Now it is the market’s turn.

FAQ Why did Bitcoin break out today? June CPI fell 0.4% on the month, the largest decline since April 2020, easing fears of further rate pressure. BTC broke its week-long $60,000 to $64,000 range at $64,740 on volume roughly 20% higher than the prior day.

Is the Bitcoin breakout confirmed? Not yet. Confirmation requires daily closes above $64,000 with volume staying elevated. A close back inside the old range would mark a failed breakout and re-expose $60,000.

What are the next resistance levels for Bitcoin? The round $65,000 first, then the mid $60,000s zone where June’s breakdown began and prior buyers remain trapped. Overhead supply there makes a straight-line rally unlikely.

What is the biggest risk to the rally? Oil. June’s inflation relief came mostly from falling energy prices, and renewed Middle East tensions are pushing oil back up, which could reverse the macro story behind this move.

What was the June 2026 CPI report? Consumer prices fell 0.4% in June, the biggest monthly drop since April 2020, with annual inflation at 3.5% and core inflation flat on the month, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

This article is for information only and is not investment advice. Crypto assets are extremely volatile and you can lose your entire stake. Always do your own research.

AUTHOR

Farhan Karim is a technology writer and content strategist with 15+ years of experience writing thousands of articles, blogs, whitepapers, and ebooks on Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, and other tech niches. His expertise in content strategy, SEO, and a keen eye on the ever-evolving tech space have led him to work with companies like Pepsi, Huawei, Arab News, and now Blockchain Reporter.

COINTELEGRAPH: Bitcoin gets new $80K August target: Watch these BTC price levels next

Bitcoin surged past $65,000 on Tuesday following new US inflation data that indicated consumer prices cooled significantly in June. The move eased market concerns about another interest rate increase from the Federal Reserve this month. During the day, bitcoin traded as high as $65,100, marking a daily gain of more than 4%.

Inflation drops more than forecastThe US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the Consumer Price Index fell by 0.4% in June, the sharpest monthly decline since April 2020. This result exceeded economist expectations, who had anticipated only a 0.2% fall. On a yearly basis, inflation eased to 3.5%, down from 4.2% in May. The latest figures mark the first drop after inflation reached a three-year high in the previous month.

Declining energy costs were the biggest driver of the slowdown, with gasoline prices dropping more than 9% in June. These decreases countered modest increases in food and shelter expenses.

Market reaction and crypto performanceEther, the native cryptocurrency of the Ethereum network, outpaced bitcoin’s rally, rising nearly 7% to approximately $1,895. Both assets appeared to benefit from the prospect of a less aggressive stance by the Federal Reserve on monetary tightening.

Recent surges in energy prices, fueled by tensions between the US and Iran, had contributed to inflation throughout the spring. This previously prompted market participants to anticipate further rate hikes, a scenario that tends to weigh on riskier assets like cryptocurrencies. The fresh inflation data, however, relieved some of those pressures.

AssetPrice Change (Daily)Current PriceBitcoin (BTC)+4%$65,100Ether (ETH)+7%$1,895Fed outlook and ongoing risksTraders now assign higher odds that the Federal Reserve will keep its policy rate steady, maintaining it between 3.5% and 3.75% at this month’s meeting, according to data from CME FedWatch. However, many in the market still expect the central bank to consider a 25-basis-point increase at its September meeting.

Last month, statements from the Warsh Federal Reserve indicated a more hawkish policy path despite recent data. US military officials announced Tuesday that preparations were underway to reinstate a blockade on Iranian ports, following a series of strikes near the strategic Strait of Hormuz.

Ongoing geopolitical tensions and the potential for resurgent energy prices continue to weigh on investor sentiment, especially for risk-sensitive assets such as cryptocurrencies.

Bitcoin broke above $65,000 as softer-than-expected US inflation data reassured markets and eased speculation over an imminent Fed rate hike.

Mini dictionary: CME FedWatch, a real-time tool used by traders to gauge market expectations for future Federal Reserve interest rate moves based on Fed funds futures pricing.

The next policy decisions and geopolitical developments remain in focus, as traders continue to assess the outlook for inflation, interest rates, and digital asset performance in coming months.

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.

Galaxy Digital Head of Research Alex Thorn stated that between 2024 and 2025, a significant volume of long-dormant Bitcoin (BTC) was reactivated and transferred on-chain, with the activity’s scale second only to 2017. He noted that the "Great Distribution" phase driven by this wave of old BTC reactivation has now largely concluded, and it is projected that the number of BTC reactivated in 2026 will be less than half of the 2025 figure.

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2 min read

Bitcoin price (CoinDesk Data)Summary

Bitcoin held near a three-week high and ether steadied around its highest since June 3 as U.S.-Iran hostilities capped gains from a softer-than-expected U.S. inflation report on Tuesday.HYPE rose 4% and is targeting a new record above $78, supported by a trend of higher highs and higher lows since May. Rival LIT stalled as profit-taking set in near its all-time high of $2.76.CoinMarketCap's Altcoin Season indicator slipped to 46/100 as strength concentrated in the majors rather than spreading across the broader market.Bitcoin BTC$64,532.45 and ether (ETH) consolidated during Asian and European hours after rallying on Tuesday following a weaker-than-forecast U.S. inflation figure.

Bitcoin, while more than 3% higher over 24 hours, fell 0.6% since midnight UTC as tensions between Iran and the U.S. over tanker movements in the Strait of Hormuz ramped up. The largest cryptocurrency earlier touched a three-week high of $65,200.

Ether marked a similar trajectory, remaining 5% higher over 24 hours even after dropping 0.8% since midnight. It touched $1,895, the highest level since June 3, on Tuesday.

U.S. equities also rose in the period, with Nasdaq 100 futures and S&P 500 futures posting respective gains of 0.53% and 0.22%.

The altcoin market also showed pockets of strength; PUMP rose by 8.5% since midnight after a team and investor unlock was mopped up by investors, suggesting robust demand.

Derivatives positioningBTC derivatives positioning remains largely unchanged. Open interest ticked up to $17.3 billion, though the move is not meaningful, the three-month annualized basis held at 3.8% and funding rates remained broadly in the 0%-8% annualized range across multiple venues. In essence, the market continues to consolidateOptions positioning tilted more bullish as the 24-hour call/put ratio moved to 66/34 following yesterday's softer 58/42 read and the one-week delta skew held steady at ~15%. The ATM term structure remains in contango, with the front end around 32%–33% and the long end at ~42.5% out to mid-2027 - indicating a calm, non-stressed volatility environment with a renewed lean toward upside positioning.Coinglass data shows $357 million in 24-hour liquidations, with a 19-81 split between longs and shorts. ETH ($132 million) and BTC ($118 million) were the leaders in terms of notional liquidations. The Binance liquidation heatmap indicates $63,500 as a core liquidation level to monitor in the event of a price drop.Token talkCoinMarketCap’s “Altcoin Season” indicator fell to 46/100 on Wednesday, likely due to the strength shown by the largest cryptocurrencies, bitcoin and ether.The indicator was also dragged down by WLFI$0.05694, which lost around 1% since midnight UTC despite buoyancy in the broader market.Hyperliquid (HYPE) demonstrated its strength, adding 4% since midnight as it looks to extend May’s rally, which has been characterized by a series of higher highs and higher lows. The next target would be a record high above $78.00.HYPE’s rival token, LIT, stalled after a strong month, rising by just 0.5% as it started experiencing profit-taking and supply distribution as it neared its record high of $2.76.There was also a strong gain for zcash (ZEC), which surged by more than 10% over the past 24 hours before consolidating around $557.Related Assets

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Here are the leaked details of the latest meeting in the Situation Room regarding the recently restarted war in the Middle East.

Bitcoin’s price charted impressive gains on Tuesday and Wednesday after the lower-than-expected US CPI numbers for June, spiking to a multi-week peak of $65,000.

However, this progress is in danger again due to the quickly escalating tension in the Middle East, especially since many reports outlined US President Donald Trump’s new attack strategy against Iran.

New Attack Strategy Revealed The two sides sat in a fragile ceasefire for weeks but failed to reach a decisive deal to permanently end the conflict. Instead, the attacks resumed last week; Trump said the memorandum of understanding is over, and they have launched strikes against each other almost daily since then.

According to multiple reports, the POTUS held a meeting in the Situation Room on Tuesday to discuss a “massive offense” against the Middle Eastern country. Some of the details that went public include:

The meeting was attended by Vice President JD Vance, Marco Rubio, Pete Hegseth, John Ratcliffe, Steve Witkoff, and other senior officials The new attack strategy will involve strikes with a wider scope than the current ones, which are mostly focused on the region around the Strait of Hormuz. Axios reported that one of the major conclusions of the meeting focused on new plans for “devastating strikes on strategic targets in Iran.” Moreover, the report claimed that Trump claimed Iran should “better make a deal” or they are “not going to have anything left.” The good news in all of this could come from this particular sentence, as the POTUS has made similar threats in the past, which actually preceded major de-escalations.

Is BTC in Danger Again? The timing of these new reported plans for mass attacks couldn’t come at a worse time for bitcoin. The primary cryptocurrency has finally shown some strength following a major macro reversal. The CPI data for June showed much lower inflation than expected, which could mean less chance for the US Fed to increase interest rates.

Bitcoin reacted with an immediate price pump that drove it to a multi-month peak at $65,000 after it slumped below $58,000 for the first time in almost two years on July 1. New negative developments on the war front have long harmed its trend reversal, as attacks typically lead to a BTC crash and a surge in oil prices.

You may also like: Is Wrapped Bitcoin Flashing a Bullish Signal? Exchange Outflows Hit Six-Week High Why Strategy’s Tiny 32 BTC Sale Changed How Investors View Corporate Bitcoin Buying Bitcoin Nears Final Stage of Bear Market Window – Is a Broader Recovery in Sight? Consequently, there’s a real threat that bitcoin can erase the recent gains if the US follows through on its plan and Iran starts to retaliate against many nations in the region as it did in the past.

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The crypto market has absorbed weeks of geopolitical jolts, ETF flow whipsaws, and choppy Bitcoin price action. Against that backdrop, a single on-chain signal from Wrapped Bitcoin’s Ethereum rails is catching attention. According to the Santiment update, 326 WBTC left exchanges in one day—the largest net outflow since early June.

WBTC outflows matter because coins sitting on trading platforms are effectively available for sale. When Bitcoin’s tokenized version on Ethereum exits exchanges, the immediate selling pressure on those assets declines. More importantly, WBTC is built to move Bitcoin liquidity into DeFi, where it can be deployed as collateral, lent out, or used in liquidity pools. So a 6-week high in outflows isn’t just a simple holder withdrawal—it points to capital rotating back into on-chain yield strategies or serving as a foundation for decentralized borrowing and trading.

What the Outflow Signal Suggests The timing aligns with a market that has been starved for durable risk appetite. Bitcoin has struggled to hold momentum through repeated macro tremors. Exchange flow balance has often been a short-term tell: when outflows spike during consolidation phases, it frequently signals that large market participants are moving coins into longer-term holding or productive DeFi use cases rather than preparing to dump.

At the same time, wrapped Bitcoin is no longer the only way to bring BTC exposure onto Ethereum or other chains. Coinbase’s cbBTC and Circle’s newly live cirBTC are giving institutions and DeFi users alternative rails. Their presence could actually amplify the WBTC outflow story. If more users are migrating BTC into on-chain environments via multiple wrapped versions, the overall pool of idle Bitcoin on centralized exchanges shrinks, and that’s typically supportive for spot prices.

Meanwhile, Ethereum itself remains a developer magnet. Recent data on developer activity, as tracked by services like Top 10 Blockchains by Developer Activity This Week, shows the network maintaining a strong lead, which underpins the smart contract infrastructure that makes wrapped Bitcoin useful. Without a vibrant DeFi ecosystem, WBTC would be less attractive as a yield-generating asset.

The Next Unknowns One large outflow event doesn’t guarantee sustained bullish momentum. Traders will want to see whether this becomes a trend over several days or remains an outlier. Also, some of the outflow could reflect a one-off rebalancing by a single fund or protocol. Without knowing the precise wallet identities, it’s impossible to distinguish between a few whales and broad market behavior.

The broader tokenization trend adds another layer. With real-world assets crossing $20 billion on-chain and major financial players executing live tokenized settlements, as covered in the Weekly Tokenization Roundup, the movement of wrapped assets is increasingly tied to institutional plumbing rather than purely retail speculation. So the WBTC outflows may be part of a deeper structural shift, not just a market-timing signal.

For now, the Santiment data adds another layer of evidence that selling appetite is thinning, even as Bitcoin navigates a difficult macro environment. The next few days will show whether the rotation back into DeFi has real legs.

AUTHOR

Max delves deep into the cryptocurrency realm, with a passion for altcoins and NFTs. Convinced of crypto's transformative potential, he envisions a decentralized financial future. Max's background in the financial sector grants him unique insights into global monetary systems. In his leisure, Max embraces the thrill of adventures and is an avid sports enthusiast, finding balance and rejuvenation away from work.

Japan has given its approval to a new reform of its digital currency laws as lawmakers enacted digital assets into the country’s financial markets regulatory system. The reform will implement stricter requirements for the industry such as a prohibition on insider trading and a tax cut for crypto. Moreover, it increases the possibility for Bitcoin, crypto ETFs to be launched in the future.

Japan Advances Major Crypto Bill Reform The law classifies cryptocurrencies more as an investment product than a payment product and places them under the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act (FIEA). The Japanese crypto bill was passed by the lower house in mid-June following approval of the proposal by the Cabinet on April 10, 2026. It will go through the upper house and be expected to complete the remaining legislative process in 2027.

The new framework will apply securities-like regulations to about 105 digital assets. Periodic disclosures will have to be made by the token issuers and there will be increased compliance requirements throughout the market. Authorities have also tightened up on explicit bans on insider trading in crypto assets.

Penalties for dealing unlawfully with the market have been raised to higher levels. Violations will be punished by an increase in max prison time from three years to 10 years. Fines will also be raised, up to 10 million yen from 3 million yen.

The reforms also include changes to crypto taxation. At this moment, digital asset trading profits are considered miscellaneous income and tax rates can reach as high as 55%. The government has proposed to replace the current tax system with a new flat tax at rate of 20% for individual investors. If approved by law, the tax changes will go into effect in 2028.

Bitcoin ETF Approval Soon? Previously, Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama has stated that the reforms will enhance investor protection and facilitate capital formation, while keeping financial markets fair.

According to the new classification, the regulation of Bitcoin and crypto ETFs in Japan should become easier as well. The revised framework may facilitate the approval of products like Yen denominated Bitcoins ETF in the future. There are already over 12 million verified crypto users in Japan with approximately $34 billion in crypto assets held under domestic custody.

For tokenized stock trading, visit our page on Best Platforms to Trade Tokenized Stocks.