Fear language is surging across crypto channels as discussions of the market being “dead” gain traction online.
Words like dead, dying, over, ended, ending, and finished are gaining traction across X, Reddit, Telegram, and other crypto channels, says Santiment Intelligence.
“This is fear language. It usually appears when retail patience is breaking, prices feel stuck, and traders start treating temporary weakness like permanent failure.”
Data from the crypto analytics firm shows that increased mentions of fearful words related to Bitcoin on social media channels this year have been favorable for long-term BTC holders.
“Crypto markets often move hardest against the crowd when the crowd becomes too certain that upside is gone. When ‘crypto is dead’ talk rises while Bitcoin holds key levels, stronger hands keep accumulating, and forced sellers fade, the setup often becomes more attractive for patient buyers.”
Source: Santiment Intelligence
Santiment Intelligence’s data also shows that the crowd is getting ultra negative toward XRP (XRP) as its price hovers around $1.
“XRP negativity surged throughout this week as prices have failed to rally (so far). Crowd commentary is now at a 3-month bearish extreme across X, Reddit, Telegram, and other crypto channels.
The XRP Ledger, on the other hand, is not so quiet. XRP just saw 49,929 active addresses in a single 24-hour span, its highest activity level in over 2 months, after earlier July activity had dropped near 2026 lows.
Now that the asset’s market value has fallen back under $1.00, expect retail sentiment to remain ugly. But with on-chain activity high, this is the counter-signal bulls want to see. Fear is loud. Participation is rising. If XRP holds structure and demand returns, today’s negativity could become tomorrow’s discounted entry narrative.”
Crypto trading platform Bits of Gold has suffered a data breach, with approximately 200,000 customer records potentially stolen.
Israel’s largest licensed crypto exchange, Bits of Gold, has suffered a data breach, with personal data of around 200,000 customers—nearly the platform’s entire user base—stolen by hackers. Bits of Gold was Israel’s first crypto company to obtain a Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASP) license, receiving regulatory approval in September 2022. The specific types of leaked data have not been disclosed, but crypto brokers typically collect extensive identity information under KYC rules, including government-issued identification documents, address proofs, and financial details. The compromised data could be used for phishing, SIM swapping, and social engineering attacks. Additionally, Bits of Gold secured approval in April this year to issue the BILS stablecoin, which is pegged 1:1 to the Israeli shekel.
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Inside details of US-Iran negotiations have been exposed, revealing that the Trump administration bypassed Iranian negotiating representatives to contact the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
According to Axios, citing three people familiar with the discussions, U.S. negotiators encountered a major hurdle in mid-May while attempting to broker a war-ending deal with Iran: they could not verify whether the Iranian representatives at the table truly represented the influential Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). In response, Trump administration officials took an unusual approach—bypassing Iranian negotiators to directly reach out to senior IRGC leaders. The U.S. tapped Nechirvan Barzani, President of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, to oversee this secret backchannel. Barzani held a rare advantage: he was trusted by both U.S. and IRGC leadership. A key challenge complicating U.S.-Iran talks was Washington’s uncertainty over who actually holds decision-making authority in Iran. Though the two sides did eventually strike a memorandum of understanding, the deal quickly fell apart.
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CZ refutes claims that Bitcoin will go to zero, stating that many have made incorrect judgments about cryptocurrencies.
Binance founder CZ has commented on the World Gold Council (WGC) CEO’s assertion that Bitcoin’s value will fall to zero. CZ noted that many people have previously made incorrect judgments about cryptocurrencies, adding that understanding this field takes time, and he himself cannot be 100% certain he is right—after all, we are only human. The WGC CEO said in a recent interview: “Personally, my view is that Bitcoin will drop to zero, but this stance is not because Bitcoin is opposed to gold.”
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A crypto whale spent $153.6 million on an arbitrage trade, netting just $0.36 in profit.
According to monitoring by OnchainLens, a crypto whale that had been dormant for two years has suddenly become active, borrowing 816,400 WETH (valued at approximately $153.6 million) from Morpho and Spark to conduct arbitrage trading. The transaction generated $1.88 in revenue, paid $1.53 in fees, resulting in a net profit of just $0.36.
27 minutes ago
CZ refutes claims that Bitcoin will go to zero, pointing out that many people have made incorrect judgments about cryptocurrencies.
Binance founder CZ has commented on the World Gold Council (WGC) CEO’s assertion that Bitcoin’s value will fall to zero. CZ noted that many people have previously made incorrect judgments about cryptocurrencies, adding that understanding the sector takes time, and he is not 100% certain he is right—after all, we are all human. In a recent interview, the WGC CEO stated, “My personal view on Bitcoin is that it will drop to zero, but this stance is not because Bitcoin is opposed to gold.”
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CZ's address did not actively destroy the Niulai token; instead, the token creator used the smart contract to forcefully transfer the tokens.
According to Arkham data, at around 16:15 today, three consecutive token burns occurred at CZ’s public donation address: 4,444 meme token “Niu Lai” (contract address starts with 0xD043B6, a namesake of the popularly traded 0xbee-started “Niu Lai” token), 4,444 meme coin MarsCoin, and 4,444 “Binance Life”. Verification reveals the 4,444 Niu Lai meme tokens were not burned by CZ himself. The transaction initiator is the token creator (0xcf86..383), who deployed the contract and set privileged authorization, minted 1 billion tokens to his own address, transferred ~800 million tokens to CZ’s address, then used the transferFrom function to forcibly withdraw 4,444 tokens from CZ’s address to a black hole address to simulate CZ’s burn. CZ’s address had no authorization for this token or the initiator during this period. This tactic is not uncommon. Previously, in 2025, the CAAB token project transferred 80% of its total supply directly to CZ’s donation address, promoting “CZ holdings” to push its market cap to a fake high in a short time and mislead investors. The SHORT token sent 99.9% of its total supply to CZ; after CZ “cleaned up” (burned) them, the token saw a short-term surge, allowing the project team to sell off their holdings. BlockBeats reminds users that on-chain monitoring tools will directly label this transaction as “From: Changpeng Zhao”. A single burn hash cannot be taken as CZ’s endorsement, project participation, or active burning. Contract creators can move balances from other token holders’ addresses, carrying extremely high risks. Meme coins generally lack practical use cases and have highly volatile prices, so investment requires caution.
Cboe BZX Exchange, which is part of Cboe Global Markets (Cboe: CBOE), has submitted a formal request to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) seeking authorization to list and trade a new series of leveraged exchange-traded funds, including products designed to deliver three times the daily performance of bitcoin and ether.
The filing, submitted in early August 2026, also covers similarly structured funds linked to gold, silver, crude oil, and natural gas.
If approved, the bitcoin and ether versions would mark the first triple-leveraged crypto ETFs available to US investors.
These instruments aim to provide amplified daily exposure primarily by holding futures contracts traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange or COMEX, with cash and cash equivalents serving as collateral.
Volatility Shares LLC is set to serve as the sponsor, with the products organized as series under the VS Trust.
Because the proposed funds target leveraged returns, they fall outside Cboe’s existing generic listing standards for commodity-based trust shares, which generally prohibit such products.
As a result, the exchange must pursue a specific rule-change process under Section 19(b) of the Securities Exchange Act rather than relying on streamlined pathways available for non-leveraged offerings.
Cboe has indicated it will also file related registration statements under the Securities Act of 1933.
The structure positions the funds as commodity pools regulated primarily by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) rather than as traditional investment companies subject to the Investment Company Act of 1940.
This approach adds an extra layer of federal oversight compared with physical commodity-based exchange-traded products.
Leveraged ETFs of this type are generally intended for short-term tactical use by sophisticated traders rather than long-term holdings.
Their daily reset mechanism means that returns over multi-day periods can diverge substantially from a simple multiple of the underlying asset’s performance, especially in volatile markets.
Volatility Shares already offers double-leveraged bitcoin and ether products in the United States, so the new filings represent an extension of that product lineup to higher leverage levels.
Market observers note that the proposal arrives amid a broader expansion of crypto-related investment vehicles in the US, following the earlier approval of spot bitcoin and ether ETFs and subsequent developments in options trading on those products.
The SEC’s review process for the rule change typically involves a public comment period and a decision window that can extend to 45 days or longer after notice publication in the Federal Register.
Approval is not guaranteed.
Regulators will examine factors such as investor protection, market integrity, potential for manipulation, and the operational readiness of the proposed products.
Even if the exchange rule change receives clearance, trading cannot begin until the associated registration statements become effective.
The move underscores continued innovation in the regulated derivatives and ETF space as exchanges and sponsors seek to offer investors more tools for gaining exposure to digital assets and traditional commodities. For now, the filings remain under review, with no confirmed timeline for a final decision or potential launch.
Billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban has suggested that the next significant investment surge could center on computer chips, not digital currencies like Bitcoin. He took to X to voice his belief that advanced computing hardware, particularly high-end GPUs powering artificial intelligence, may soon emerge as a major investment asset class.
Chips as a new asset classCuban, known for his influence during the dot-com boom, stated that the transformation driven by artificial intelligence is beginning to upend traditional views on computing hardware. Historically, computer chips have been regarded as rapidly depreciating equipment with little long-term investment value.
Recent demand spikes for sophisticated GPUs, vital for training and deploying large AI models, have brought new attention to the asset potential of chips. Cuban argued that their value proposition is changing as artificial intelligence expands into more sectors, prompting investors to reevaluate hardware beyond its typical operational cycle.
However, Cuban’s comments generated swift reactions from the cryptocurrency community. Some Bitcoin supporters challenged the analogy, noting key differences between chip supply economics and the unique mechanisms underlying Bitcoin.
Bitcoin advocate Pierre Rochard responded that chip manufacturing does not feature the difficulty adjustment or halving schedule that defines Bitcoin’s supply model, highlighting what he sees as a fundamental difference in investment dynamics.
Others in the crypto industry interpreted Cuban’s remarks as a possible signal that the digital asset market is nearing the end of its bear phase, with some jokingly characterizing his prediction as “late-cycle” thinking.
Mark Cuban’s evolving crypto stanceCuban has a history of skepticism toward Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. In 2019, he compared Bitcoin to collectibles and even stated he would prefer to own bananas due to their practical utility, although he acknowledged Bitcoin’s potential as a store of value.
Over time, his perspective shifted. Cuban became notably enthusiastic about Ethereum, emphasizing its support for smart contracts and decentralized applications as a key advantage over Bitcoin. He has argued that Ethereum’s real-world utility gives it a broader appeal.
He also frequently likened Bitcoin to gold, suggesting both serve as safe haven assets. However, he later disclosed in May that he had sold most of his Bitcoin holdings. Cuban said his chief frustration stemmed from Bitcoin’s inability to act as a reliable macro hedge during volatile market conditions.
During a recent interview, Cuban remarked that Bitcoin “has lost the plot” from his perspective. He clarified that while he still viewed Bitcoin as a superior alternative to gold, he was disappointed with its performance amid broader economic uncertainty.
Changing investment landscapeThe rapid growth of the AI sector and surging demand for advanced chips have prompted investors to examine shifts in traditional asset classes. As these trends accelerate, established market players are reevaluating how hardware and digital assets fit into diversified portfolios.
While traditional markets rely on complex brokers, a major transition is underway. Wall Street is increasingly adopting Web3 solutions that allow investors to hold shares of major U.S. companies, gold, and silver directly in their crypto wallets using platforms such as 1stepSwap. By tokenizing Real-World Assets and automatically finding the best available prices within seconds, these platforms remove traditional intermediaries and streamline access to both hardware and digital assets.
Disclaimer: The information contained in this article does not constitute investment advice. Investors should be aware that cryptocurrencies carry high volatility and therefore risk, and should conduct their own research.
Bitcoin maintains its position near $63,000, serving as the primary market indicator for digital assets
Ethereum dropped under $1,900, yet U.S. ETF products attracted $103.9 million in net inflows over one week
Solana expanded block capacity to 100 million compute units while hovering around $75
Chainlink approached $10 after announcing new partnerships and releasing its agent platform beta
Hyperliquid posted approximately 154% gains during the first six months of 2026
Cryptocurrency markets are experiencing turbulence, yet price declines often create opportunities for strategic investors. Five digital assets—Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, Chainlink, and Hyperliquid—deserve attention in the current environment.
Bitcoin: The Industry Standard
Bitcoin continues to serve as the cornerstone of cryptocurrency investing. With the most extensive network infrastructure, unmatched brand awareness, and significant institutional support, it remains the dominant digital asset.
Bitcoin (BTC) Price
BTC currently hovers around $63,000. Market liquidity constraints and general uncertainty have contributed to price pressure, though this correction may present entry points for investors viewing Bitcoin as a long-term wealth preservation tool.
While Bitcoin may not deliver the dramatic gains seen in smaller-cap projects, it presents significantly lower project-specific risks, solidifying its role as the standard against which all cryptocurrencies are evaluated.
Ethereum: Sustained Institutional Appetite
Ethereum serves as the backbone for decentralized finance protocols, stablecoin infrastructure, asset tokenization, NFT marketplaces, and countless decentralized applications. It maintains its position as the leading smart contract platform globally.
ETH slipped beneath $1,900 during recent market volatility. However, institutional interest proved resilient. U.S.-based Ethereum ETF products recorded $103.9 million in net inflows for the week concluded July 24, topping all cryptocurrency ETF products during that timeframe.
The convergence of robust developer engagement, powerful network effects, and growing institutional participation positions Ethereum as a priority holding for long-term portfolios.
Solana: Speed, Efficiency, and Momentum
Solana presents a direct alternative to Ethereum, particularly for applications requiring high throughput and minimal transaction costs. The platform recently upgraded its block capacity to accommodate 100 million compute units.
The ecosystem continues expanding across payment solutions, tokenized real-world assets, and interoperability protocols. SOL traded around $75 in mid-August, considerably below previous all-time highs.
This disparity between current valuations and historical peaks may represent an entry opportunity for investors confident in the platform’s continued development trajectory.
Chainlink: Critical Infrastructure Investment
Chainlink provides essential connectivity between blockchain networks and external data sources while facilitating cross-chain asset transfers. It functions as fundamental infrastructure supporting the emerging tokenization ecosystem.
LINK surged toward $10 in mid-August following announcements of additional CCIP integrations and the beta release of Chainlink for Agents. These milestones demonstrate ongoing platform evolution and expansion.
Should tokenized assets achieve widespread adoption in traditional finance, Chainlink is well-positioned to capture value as a critical infrastructure provider supporting this transformation.
Hyperliquid: Aggressive Growth with Elevated Risk
Hyperliquid represents the highest-risk proposition in this selection. The decentralized perpetual futures exchange has experienced rapid expansion, with HYPE appreciating approximately 154% during the first half of 2026.
Such performance establishes elevated expectations going forward. Planned token unlock schedules and regulatory ambiguity introduce risks requiring careful consideration.
Nevertheless, Hyperliquid demonstrates that decentralized trading infrastructure can effectively challenge centralized exchange dominance in the cryptocurrency derivatives market.
As anticipation builds for the next Bitcoin halving, Binance founder Changpeng Zhao has sparked renewed debate over the true scarcity of Bitcoin, arguing that the circulating supply may be smaller than many in the market realize.
Deflationary nature of Bitcoin underlinedChangpeng Zhao, known as CZ, is the founder of Binance, one of the world’s leading cryptocurrency exchanges. In a post published earlier today, he described Bitcoin as a deflationary asset and questioned the widely held assumptions regarding its supply.
CZ pointed out that while over 20.07 million Bitcoin have been mined as of August 2026, this number does not fully represent the coins truly available for trading or investment. With Bitcoin’s capped supply set at 21 million, just 4.4% of new coins remain to be mined before the protocol’s limit is reached.
Lost and inaccessible Bitcoin reduce actual supplyDespite the significant number of mined Bitcoin, CZ cautioned that the real quantity circulating in the market could be much lower. He estimated that between 10% and 20% of the mined coins may be permanently inaccessible, due to lost private keys or abandoned wallets.
Tokens in this category are effectively removed from circulation, as there is no way for owners—or anyone else—to retrieve them. Cases of lost Bitcoin include assets left in wallets whose credentials are forgotten or lost, and coins sent to invalid addresses.
As CZ explained, this phenomenon strengthens Bitcoin’s scarcity beyond the already hard cap of 21 million, as the operational supply available to crypto market participants narrows even further.
Mini dictionary: Private key, a unique cryptographic code that enables users to access and manage their cryptocurrency holdings. Losing the private key means the associated funds become irrecoverable, rendering the coins effectively unusable.
Impact on Bitcoin’s market dynamicsThe reduced available supply due to lost or inaccessible coins could influence market liquidity and price behavior, particularly as the next halving approaches and additional new supply entering circulation slows.
CZ’s remarks highlight the potential for even smaller quantities of Bitcoin to be available for buying, selling, or transferring than what aggregate mined figures suggest.
MetricAmountTotal possible Bitcoin supply21 millionBitcoin mined as of August 202620.07 millionUnmined Bitcoin (remaining)4.4% of total supplyEstimated lost/inaccessible Bitcoin10%–20% of mined supply
The number of Bitcoin that can realistically be bought, sold, or moved by users may be much lower than the figure of 20.07 million, as a significant portion is lost or inaccessible due to forgotten private keys or abandoned wallets.
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.
Grant Cardone has spent years telling investors that real estate is the only asset class where debt works in your favor. The latest version of that argument puts Bitcoin in the same collateral box, not as a payment rail or inflation hedge, but as a way to keep assets un-sold while still accessing capital.
According to the original report from WuBlockchain, Cardone told DraperTV on August 8 that Bitcoin is “real estate without the tenants or property taxes.” The comment captures how some high-net-worth investors now categorize the asset: no cash flow, but also no maintenance, no tenant risk, and no local property tax bill.
The strategy Cardone describes is essentially a refinance loop. In real estate, rising rents can support a new loan every seven years or so. The owner takes out equity, keeps the property, and generally does not pay income tax on loan proceeds because borrowing is not treated as a sale. That recovery of original capital can then be redirected into another asset. Cardone said he is using real estate projects to fund Bitcoin purchases while the properties still produce cash flow and tax write-offs.
Why borrowing beats selling in this framework For wealthy investors, selling an appreciated asset creates a tax event. Borrowing against the same asset typically does not. That distinction is the core of the Buy, Borrow, Die approach that estate planners talk about, though Cardone frames it as an active cash-flow strategy rather than a pure estate plan.
Bitcoin fits the model only if a lender is willing to accept it as collateral or if an investor is wealthy enough to borrow through other means and allocate the proceeds. It is a different setup from real estate, where property appraisals and rental income give lenders a relatively stable basis for underwriting. The same impulse is visible in the institutional push toward tokenized real-world assets, where tokenization markets are starting to move property and Treasury exposure on-chain. If those structures mature, they could make real estate and Bitcoin easier to hold inside the same collateral pool.
The tax part is powerful until it is not Loan proceeds are generally not taxable income, but the interest and the use of the borrowed money can change the picture. If an investor borrows against a business property and uses the funds to buy Bitcoin, the IRS may apply interest-tracing rules depending on how the debt and the new asset are treated. That is the kind of detail Cardone’s public comments leave out.
For most retail investors, the strategy also runs into a practical gate. Banks and crypto lenders do not offer the same terms to a small property owner as they do to a fund operator with a portfolio of cash-flowing buildings. The tax code does not care about the pitch if the leverage is not available.
Policy risk sits in the background. Washington has been fighting over the shape of crypto and tax legislation, and the outcome could alter how digital assets are treated as collateral, income, or reportable property. The current battle over a major US crypto bill shows how quickly bank and lawmaker positions can shift, as covered in this legislative update.
What the pitch leaves out Bitcoin has no rent roll. A refinance in real estate works because the income stream justifies a new loan. Bitcoin produces nothing unless it is lent out or used in a yield product, and those arrangements introduce counterparty risk that a direct property holding does not have. Cardone’s framing removes the tenant and the property tax, but it also removes the cash flow that makes the refinance possible in the first place.
There is a broader market structure point here. If more investors borrow against real estate to buy Bitcoin, the strategy depends on both real estate valuations and Bitcoin’s price staying high enough to keep lenders comfortable. A downturn in either market can force a sale at exactly the wrong time. The model sounds clean in an interview, but it is essentially a leveraged cross-asset position.
The infrastructure to support more complex collateral arrangements is still being built. Ethereum, BNB Chain, and Polygon continue to attract heavy developer activity, according to this week’s development data, but that does not mean mainstream lenders are ready to treat Bitcoin like a first-lien property loan.
Cardone’s comments are best read as a window into how large real estate operators think about Bitcoin. It is not necessarily a market call. It is a portfolio mechanics argument: avoid selling, borrow against productive assets, and let the next asset class ride on the balance sheet. The appeal is obvious. The execution is narrower than the clip suggests.
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Kester is an experienced freelance content writer. His focus is primarily on blockchain technology and cryptocurrency. One might even refer to him as a "blockchain enthusiast." He has been following advancements in the crypto and blockchain area for several years, researching and writing his insights in the media. In addition to being a skilled content writer, Mushumir is also knowledgeable in SEO and digital marketing. He aspires to succeed as a content creator in the digital realm, dealing with customers in the finance and tech industries to generate traffic through engaging taglines and content. Mushumir enjoys traveling, reading, and playing cricket when he is not writing. He now works as a news and article writer for BlockchainReporter.
The decline in prices would not be enough to stop bitcoin adoption. This is the finding presented on August 12 by Zach Pandl, research director at Grayscale. According to him, several trends far exceed the movements of a market cycle. Public deficits, the rise of blockchain in finance, and the evolution of generational portfolios could thus support demand in the medium and long term. This analysis does not predict an automatic price increase but highlights structural factors capable of continuing their progress despite instability.
In brief
Grayscale identifies three structural forces capable of supporting bitcoin adoption despite the bear market.
Public deficits and rising debt could strengthen interest in limited supply assets.
Blockchain is gradually integrating into traditional finance thanks to stablecoins and tokenized assets.
Generational change could increase the role of digital assets in investment portfolios.
ETFs and corporate treasuries offer new channels to facilitate exposure to bitcoin.
Three Forces That Exceed the Bitcoin Market Cycle
Zach Pandl, research director at Grayscale, believes several trends could support bitcoin adoption over several years. His analysis highlights structural changes that go beyond short-term market fluctuations. Even when the BTC price is going through a bearish period, some investors may continue to adjust their allocations. For Grayscale, these changes can therefore persist beyond the current cycle.
The three factors highlighted by Grayscale are as follows:
Public deficits and sovereign debt, which could strengthen interest in limited-supply assets.
The integration of blockchain into finance, driven notably by stablecoins and tokenized assets.
Generational change in portfolios, with some investors giving a growing place to digital assets.
The first factor is based on the idea that limited supply can attract more interest when budget concerns increase. Higher debt alone does not cause a mechanical increase in demand. American data nonetheless illustrates the extent of this pressure. As of August 12, the United States public debt stood at $39.91 trillion.
Of this total, $32.18 trillion was debt held by the public. The remaining $7.73 trillion were intragovernmental holdings. Budget projections add another dimension to this analysis. The Congressional Budget Office forecasts a deficit of $1.9 trillion for fiscal year 2026.
It then estimates this deficit could reach $3.1 trillion by 2036. At the same time, debt held by the public would rise from 101% to 120% of gross domestic product. This situation thus fuels reflection on scarce assets. However, it does not directly predict the evolution of demand.
The second driver identified by Pandl concerns blockchain. This technology is gradually gaining ground in financial markets thanks to stablecoins and tokenized assets. The tokenized assets market exceeded $34 billion in May. It represented less than $3 billion around mid-2024.
Tokenized US Treasury products represented about $16 billion at that time. This growth shows that traditional financial instruments can use infrastructures based on cryptographic networks. The technology is thus gradually gaining a foothold in financial markets.
Bitcoin and Regulated Finance
Bitcoin remains a central reference in this transformation. Financial authorities also participate in this evolution by defining rules applicable to tokenized securities. The Securities and Exchange Commission describes these securities as those represented by crypto-assets. Ownership registries can be kept entirely or partially on cryptographic networks.
The SEC notably distinguishes several structures, including issuer-sponsored, deposit, and synthetic models. This definition provides a framework for financial actors wishing to use these infrastructures. It also shows that blockchain no longer concerns only markets specialized in digital assets.
Stablecoins follow a parallel regulatory trajectory. In April, the US Treasury proposed rules to implement GENIUS Act requirements for payment stablecoins. The text notably provides for treating authorized issuers as financial institutions under the Bank Secrecy Act.
These actors should also set up anti-money laundering programs and sanctions compliance. For Grayscale, this evolution can encourage financial institutions to strengthen their operational capabilities related to blockchain. The issue thus goes beyond the bitcoin market alone and gradually concerns the organization of finance.
Generational Change Modifies Portfolios
The third factor Grayscale identifies is the preferences of younger investors. According to the company’s analysis, these are more willing to hold digital assets and alternative investments. They may combine them with stocks, bonds, and other traditional assets.
This evolution could influence institutions and wealth management platforms. These actors could adapt their products and allocation models to respond to a clientele more familiar with digital assets. Generational change would thus affect demand but also the means to access it.
Data provided by a survey conducted by Coinbase last January of 351 institutional investors supports this view. About 73% of respondents planned to increase their allocations in digital assets by 2026. They cited more explicit regulation, better supervised products, and stronger infrastructure.
Traditional financial companies are also developing new indicators around this evolution. Strategy Inc. launched the Bitcoin Banking Adoption Index in July. The index then evaluated overall banking adoption at 32%. Fidelity showed 71%, BNY 46%, and Goldman Sachs 45%.
ETFs and Corporate Treasuries Expand Access
ETFs are an important channel in the adoption strategy described by Grayscale. They allow investors to obtain exposure to bitcoin through their usual brokerage infrastructures. In a bitcoin spot ETF, authorized participants create and redeem shares. The fund then holds the underlying assets according to custody agreements.
This mechanism facilitates the integration of this exposure into existing portfolios. It also allows use of already familiar financial products without requiring direct holding. Corporate treasuries also offer another path. Some companies can record bitcoins on their balance sheets and finance acquisitions with cash, debt, or equity.
Custody then becomes a risk management decision. Companies can use regulated custodians or cold storage with multiple signatures. When transactions cannot be reversed, security and governance become particularly important.
According to the company, these different trends can reinforce each other over time. Budgetary pressures could support interest in scarce assets, while blockchain can extend its use in regulated finance. Generational change could also modify the role of digital assets in portfolios.
Thus, Grayscale believes adoption can continue to progress despite price instability. This evolution depends mainly on structural trends rather than immediate market movements. Future budgetary, financial, and institutional developments will therefore measure this adoption’s progress beyond the current BTC cycle.
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Ghiles A.
Journaliste et rédacteur web passionné par l’univers des cryptomonnaies et des technologies Web3. J’y traite les dernières tendances et actualités afin de proposer un contenu de haute qualité à un large public du secteur.
DISCLAIMER
The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this article belong solely to the author, and should not be taken as investment advice. Do your own research before taking any investment decisions.
Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, also known as CZ, is once again gaining attention from the crypto market participants with his latest analysis and comments. For context, CZ has recently warned that owning one full Bitcoin would become difficult even for millionaires.
Notably, his latest comments focus on the fixed supply of Bitcoin and potentially lost coins. Besides, the comments have also revived his longer-term $1 million Bitcoin outlook, which has further caught the eyes of crypto market enthusiasts.
CZ Sparks Discussions With Latest Bitcoin Comment Changpeng Zhao (CZ) recently highlighted the advancing scarcity of Bitcoin in an X post. He noted that more than 20.07 million BTC had been mined by August 2026, leaving roughly 4.4% of BTC’s maximum 21 million supply yet to be created.
Meanwhile, he also pointed to another factor that could tighten the available supply. CZ estimated that 10% to 20% of existing Bitcoin may be lost, stuck, or permanently inaccessible.
That estimate matters because the flagship crypto cannot simply replace coins that owners can no longer access. Lost private keys can effectively remove coins from the usable market. However, the exact amount of permanently lost Bitcoin remains difficult to determine.
The implication becomes striking when Bitcoin ownership is compared with millionaire numbers. Trader Quinten Francois noted that the United States has around 23.6 million millionaires, arguing that there are not enough BTCs for every millionaire to hold one.
Commenting on that, Changpeng Zhao suggested that millionaires could eventually find themselves unable to purchase a complete Bitcoin. This has fueled market discussions on the BTC’s potential to hit the million mark, especially given his previous calls for the crypto.
The Million-Dollar BTC Argument in Focus The latest scarcity comments from Changpeng Zhao have also reignited discussions around his previous Bitcoin price outlook. In July, he outlined a scenario where Bitcoin (BTC) could reach $1 million around the 2033 market cycle.
Meanwhile, his previous comment was focused on Bitcoin’s historical market cycles. CZ described the forecast as a possible scenario rather than a guaranteed prediction, given that BTC or the overall crypto market adoption continues to expand.
In addition, a flurry of other market experts like Ark Invest’s Cathie Wood have also shared similar calls for BTC price to reach the $1 million mark. Simultaneously, Mexican billionaire Ricardo Salinas Pliego has also argued that Bitcoin could eventually reach $1 million by putting around 70% of his total portfolio into Bitcoin.
Considering that, CZ’s comments offer a bullish scarcity argument for BTC investors, but traders must still exercise due diligence. For context, investors should note that scarcity alone cannot guarantee higher prices, and given the current macroeconomic and geopolitical tensions, demand can change quickly.
Meanwhile, to successfully exercise due diligence in a highly volatile market, investors must leverage best crypto tools for research and analysis that monitor on-chain metrics.
Harvard University’s endowment is not exactly known for chasing hot trends. Its investment managers have spent decades building a reputation for measured, long-horizon thinking. That’s what makes its continued commitment to BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) worth paying attention to.
The Harvard Management Company (HMC) reported holding approximately 3 million IBIT shares, valued at $101 million, as of June 30, 2026, according to its Q2 13F filing. The position held roughly steady from the prior quarter, a signal that one of the world’s most prestigious university endowments is treating Bitcoin exposure as a durable portfolio allocation rather than a speculative flirtation.
From cautious entry to nine-figure commitment
HMC’s IBIT journey started in Q2 2025, when the endowment disclosed an initial purchase of roughly 1.9 million shares worth $116.7 million.
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The position then grew aggressively. By the end of Q3 2025, HMC had accumulated 6.81 million shares valued at $442.8 million, a peak that put Harvard in a different category from other universities experimenting with digital asset exposure.
Then came the pullback. Harvard trimmed the position significantly through late 2025 and into early 2026, arriving at 3,044,612 shares worth roughly $117 million by the end of Q1 2026. That represented a 43% reduction from the prior quarter’s holdings.
The Q2 filing shows the position stabilized, with shares declining only marginally to approximately 3 million and the dollar value settling at $101 million. The reduction in value from Q1 to Q2 reflects both the modest share count decrease and price movements in IBIT itself.
What the numbers actually tell us
Notably, HMC holds no direct positions in other digital asset products as of the latest filings. There’s no Ethereum ETF exposure, no other token-linked instruments. IBIT is the whole digital asset story at Harvard for now.
Spot Bitcoin ETFs were approved by US regulators in early 2024, and IBIT quickly became the dominant product in that category. Harvard’s decision to use IBIT rather than any other vehicle fits that pattern precisely.
Harvard is considered among the largest known university endowment holders of IBIT. Most university endowments remain on the sidelines of digital assets entirely. The ones that have moved tend to cluster around Bitcoin ETFs specifically, treating the regulated wrapper as a prerequisite for fiduciary comfort.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Bitcoin has fallen to its lowest valuation region on the Rainbow Chart model, which is based on long-term price trends. Its volatility-adjusted Z-score has also dropped to its lowest level in the last 10 years.
CryptoQuant analyst Axel Adler Jr. stated that Bitcoin is trading in a region that could be described as a “panic selling price” on the Rainbow Chart pattern. According to the analyst, the current price indicates an extreme discount compared to the long-term price trajectory of the pattern.
The Rainbow Chart doesn’t just measure the decline in Bitcoin’s price. The model compares the current price to the long-term historical trend, showing the extent to which the market has deviated from that trend.
According to the data, the volatility-adjusted Z-Score dropped to -2.293. This level is the lowest recorded for the indicator since 2016. The indicator was at -1.979 at the bottom of the 2022 bear market.
The indicator, which takes into account volatility changes in different market cycles, suggests that Bitcoin’s current downward divergence has surpassed the level seen at the bottom of the previous bear market, according to the analyst.
However, the extremely low valuation does not definitively confirm that the final bottom has been reached. While the current outlook points to a potentially attractive price range within the model, confirmation from other indicators is needed before it can be said that the market has reversed direction.
*This is not investment advice.
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16 August 2026 | 01:22 Mubadala and Abu Dhabi Investment Council ended the second quarter with the same net IBIT share counts they reported in March, even as the combined value fell by $117.7 million. Changes elsewhere in their portfolios made that unchanged Bitcoin ETF position more prominent at ADIC and less prominent at Mubadala.
Key Takeaways The two SEC tables total $763.7 million, slightly above the widely reported $763.6 million. IBIT’s portfolio weight rose at ADIC but nearly halved at Mubadala without either quarter-end share count changing. ADIC is wholly owned by Mubadala, so the positions come from separate entities within one sovereign investment group. The Official Total Is $763.7 Million Mubadala Investment Company’s Q2 information table lists 14,721,917 shares of BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF, or IBIT, valued at $490,092,617 on June 30.
A separate filing by Abu Dhabi Investment Council reports 8,218,712 IBIT shares worth $273,600,922. Together, the two positions total 22,940,629 shares and $763,693,539. That rounds to $763.7 million, not $763.6 million.
The share counts match the entities’ March 31 disclosures exactly. Mubadala’s Q1 filing valued the same 14,721,917 shares at $565,616,051, while ADIC’s earlier filing valued its unchanged 8,218,712 shares at $315,762,915.
The combined quarter-end value fell from $881.4 million to $763.7 million – a decline of $117.7 million, or about 13%. Because the reported share counts were identical on both dates, the difference reflects IBIT’s lower June 30 market price rather than a net sale between the two reporting dates.
Unchanged IBIT Shares, Opposite Portfolio Effects At ADIC, IBIT’s share of the reported portfolio rose from 32.4% in Q1 to 38.3% in Q2 even though the position’s reported value fell by $42.2 million. It became larger only in relative terms: ADIC’s 13F portfolio contracted by about 27%, from $974.8 million to $714.6 million.
Nu Holdings shows how that happened. It narrowly ranked ahead of IBIT in March, but ADIC reported 78% fewer Nu shares at the end of June. IBIT moved into first place because a competing net position was reduced and the overall reported portfolio became smaller—not because the Bitcoin ETF stake grew.
Mubadala produced the opposite result. IBIT remained its second-largest reported holding, but its portfolio weight fell from 2.8% to 1.4%. Mubadala’s 13F portfolio expanded by about 70% to $34.77 billion, driven largely by the higher reported value of its GlobalFoundries position.
The two weight changes do not show opposing Bitcoin decisions. They show why rank and portfolio percentage can mislead when separated from the rest of a filing. If the question is whether either manager changed its quarter-end IBIT allocation, the share count is more informative: it stayed flat while the two portfolio totals moved sharply in opposite directions.
These Are Two Filings Within the Same Sovereign Group The $763.7 million total combines separately reported positions from Mubadala and ADIC, but the entities are not unrelated sovereign funds. Mubadala describes ADIC as a wholly owned entity that plays a distinct role within Abu Dhabi’s sovereign investment system.
The accurate description is two Abu Dhabi reporting entities within the Mubadala group. Adding the positions is valid because the filings list separate IBIT shares, but presenting them as independent national bets would exaggerate the institutional separation behind the total.
The Filings Are a June Snapshot, Not a Live Position Mubadala submitted its report on August 14, while ADIC filed one day earlier. Both cover holdings as of June 30. The SEC explains that Form 13F is due within 45 days of quarter-end and covers specified reportable securities over which an institutional manager exercises investment discretion.
The August filings cannot be treated as live holdings. They do not reveal the entities’ current IBIT positions, their purchase prices, any direct Bitcoin exposure or their complete investment portfolios. Identical March and June balances also cannot rule out trades made between those dates; they show only that the net quarter-end positions matched.
A future increase in the disclosed dollar value would not prove fresh buying on its own either. Only a change in the reported number of shares would show that the net quarter-end position had moved.
Form 13F filings provide delayed snapshots of specified reportable securities and may not reflect current positions or an institution’s complete portfolio. This article is for informational purposes only and is not investment advice.
Author
Kosta has reported on cryptocurrency markets and blockchain infrastructure since 2020, bringing over six years of hands-on experience in the crypto industry built through daily tracking of markets, trends, and emerging blockchain developments. Specializing in Bitcoin on-chain analysis, institutional ETF flows, and digital asset price action, his work at Coindoo has been cited by other news agencies and consistently covers market developments with a focus on data-driven reporting across Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and XRP. Over the years, Kosta has contributed to multiple crypto media outlets in different regions, authoring over 6,000 articles across the sector. His reporting spans cryptocurrency markets and the broader fintech industry, tracking not only price action but also the technological and regulatory forces shaping the ecosystem. To support his analysis, Kosta actively leverages on-chain data and metrics from leading platforms such as Santiment, Glassnode, and CryptoQuant, enabling deeper, evidence-based market insights. He believes in the power of transparency and the data that underpins the blockchain ecosystem. His academic background in Marketing Management from Denmark further complements his analytical approach, adding a strong understanding of communication strategy and content positioning to his work.
Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.
Disclosure. PANews may publish sponsored content, partner content, advertisements, affiliate links, event promotions, and market commentary involving Web3 projects, service providers, or financial products. PANews personnel, contributors, or affiliates may hold digital assets or other interests related to covered topics. See our Terms of Service.
Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.
Disclosure. PANews may publish sponsored content, partner content, advertisements, affiliate links, event promotions, and market commentary involving Web3 projects, service providers, or financial products. PANews personnel, contributors, or affiliates may hold digital assets or other interests related to covered topics. See our Terms of Service.
The delay in the approval of the CLARITY Act is now pushing traditional banks, which were once against crypto, to demand the approval.
As of the latest update, Jane Fraser, CEO of Citigroup, recently backed the market structure bill, arguing that more transparent crypto regulations would improve financial system predictability and enable banks and crypto firms to operate under comparable regulations.
Speaking with Fox Business, Fraser said,
So we have not given up on pushing to get some improvements made to the bill, but we would like to see a good bill go through. I think it would be excellent for the system.
The bank remains pessimistic for Bitcoin This is a bit eye-catching because Citi is still cautious about Bitcoin [BTC]. In fact, the bank has also lowered its 12-month target from $112,000 to $82,000 due to softer demand, weak ETF inflows, and stalled regulation.
While many think that Bitcoin could eventually reach $1 million due to institutional adoption and more transparent regulations, Citi sees a $53,000 (bear case)–$108,000 (bull case) price target.
Nevertheless, despite Citi’s pessimism, Wellington-Altus Private Wealth’s Chief Market Strategist James Thorne is essentially bullish on Bitcoin, as he said,
Source: James Thorne/X Galaxy Research lowers odds of CLARITY passage This comes as Galaxy Research has drastically lowered its prediction that the U.S. CLARITY Act will pass into law in 2026 from its initial projections to just 10%. This is primarily because the bill has stalled in political negotiations.
Needless to say, the bill needs 60 Senate votes to pass, but support has been eroded by a number of factors.
This includes lawmakers still split over ethics regulations pertaining to government officials and cryptocurrency.
Additionally, banks, especially community banks, lobbying against parts of the bill involving stablecoin yields and some lawmakers want more robust safeguards against illicit finance.
As a result, Senate Majority Leader John Thune decided not to bring the bill to a vote before the August recess. While a vote is now scheduled for the 15th of September, when the Senate reconvenes, lawmakers have a very short window of time before they focus on the midterm elections.
This makes passage very challenging, according to Galaxy.
What to expect? Meanwhile, Polymarket odds have further decreased to 19%.
Source: Polymarket This aligns with AMBCrypto’s earlier report that September may be a pivotal month for cryptocurrency due to the simultaneous arrival of multiple significant catalysts.
Though Bitcoin has avoided a negative September since 2022, September has historically been a weak month for the cryptocurrency.
As a result, Bitcoin may gain if CLARITY moves forward and the Fed issues a favorable ruling. If not, September may turn out to be an especially challenging month for cryptocurrency.
Final Summary Though Citigroup is pushing for the CLARITY Act approval, its Bitcoin price target has fallen to $82,000. Galaxy Research drops CLARITY Act approval odds to 10% and Polymarket odds have reached 19%.
Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.
Disclosure. PANews may publish sponsored content, partner content, advertisements, affiliate links, event promotions, and market commentary involving Web3 projects, service providers, or financial products. PANews personnel, contributors, or affiliates may hold digital assets or other interests related to covered topics. See our Terms of Service.
Institutional demand across the crypto market has weakened, leaving investors hesitant and exchange-traded fund flows under pressure.
Despite these conditions, more ETF products are preparing to enter the market.
The SEC reported that Cboe BZX Exchange had filed a proposed rule change covering two Volatility Shares funds. These products included a 3x Bitcoin ETF and a 3x Ether ETF.
Could 3x Bitcoin and Ether ETFs launch? According to the SEC filing, Cboe BZX Exchange sought approval to list several leveraged commodity-based funds.
The proposed lineup included 3x Bitcoin and Ether ETFs. It also covered products tracking gold, silver, and crude oil. If approved, the crypto funds could become America’s first triple-leveraged Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs.
Both funds would primarily use CME Bitcoin and Ethereum futures. They would target three times their assets’ daily performance.
However, that leverage would reset daily. Returns over longer periods may differ significantly from three times the assets’ cumulative performance.
Source: SEC.gov The funds would operate as commodity pools under the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s framework.
Even so, Cboe’s proposed listing rule change still required SEC approval. Volatility Shares LLC would sponsor the funds, which would become a series of the VS Trust.
For Volatility Shares, leveraged crypto ETFs were familiar territory. The company already offered 2x Bitcoin and Ether ETFs.
Can 3x crypto ETFs revive demand? Cboe’s filing arrived as Bitcoin ETF demand weakened and selling pressure intensified. According to SoSoValue, Bitcoin Spot ETFs recorded three consecutive days of Net Outflows.
Source: SoSoValue In fact, Whale Insider reported $389.7 million in weekly Bitcoin ETF selling.
On the 14th of August, Bitwise’s BITB recorded $6 million in Net Inflows. However, total Bitcoin ETF Net Outflows reached $57 million. Ethereum [ETH] ETF flows painted a different picture. These funds recorded Net Inflows during two of the previous three days.
Source: SoSoValue Ethereum ETFs attracted $14 million in combined Net Inflows during that period. Still, earlier Net Outflows outweighed those recent additions.
Overall, Bitcoin [BTC] and Ethereum ETF flows remained under pressure. The filing introduced more leverage into the market. Whether investors currently want more exposure remains the bigger question.
Final Summary Cboe filed to list Volatility Shares’ proposed 3x Bitcoin and Ether ETFs. The funds would target three times Bitcoin’s and Ether’s daily performance through CME futures. Bitcoin Spot ETFs recorded three consecutive days of Net Outflows.
A full sell-out at $0.00001 closed stage 1, and $BULLSKI has priced at $0.000015 since, with 1,398,621,785 tokens unsold on August 16, 2026.
Both Bitcoin at $62,971 and Ethereum at $1,878.04 edged higher, while XRP slipped 0.1 percent to $1.002.
Dogecoin added 0.7 percent to $0.0699, the strongest move among the listed coins here.
Anyone comparing the best crypto to buy now should weigh entry price, supply and holding period together.
Deciding which crypto to buy gets easier once a round actually sells out, because demand has just answered part of the question for you. Stage 1 of the $BULLSKI sale emptied at $0.00001, and the ladder stepped up to $0.000015. On August 16, 2026, Bitcoin holds $62,971, Ethereum $1,878.04, XRP $1.002 and Dogecoin $0.0699.
Five names follow, each matched to a holding period instead of a mood.
Which Crypto to Buy Now, Matched to a Time Frame
Holding period changes the answer more than any chart does. Money you need back in a month belongs in liquid, heavily traded coins. Money you can leave alone for years can sit in a smaller entry price.
Today the whole market moved 0.27 percent to $2.252 trillion, so nothing here is being decided by a single session.
Quick answer: A presale sells tokens straight from the project at a fixed step price, before any exchange lists them. Steps rise as allocations sell out, and the Bullski round that is open shows the figure that applies right now.
1. $BULLSKI at $0.000015, the Smallest Entry on the Page
The Bullski ladder is a 16-stage climb settled on Ethereum. Every one of the 1,192,283,023 tokens on stage 1 went at $0.00001, which shut that rung for good. Pricing now reads $0.000015, with $0.00002 waiting on stage 3, and no step opens until its predecessor is empty.
Out of a 1,400,000,000 allocation, stage 2 was holding 1,398,621,785 tokens on August 16, 2026.
The ceiling is 120 billion tokens and it does not move. Presale accounts for 40 percent of that pool, an Ethereum wallet holds the ERC-20 token, and ETH, BNB or USDT covers payment. For listing, the published reference is $0.0025.
Readers asking which crypto to buy today for long-term low price exposure tend to land on numbers that small.
2. Bitcoin at $62,971, Built for the Long Hold
Bitcoin rose 0.4 percent to $62,971, worth $1.264 trillion, with dominance at 56.11 percent. About 20.1 million coins exist against a 21 million cap, and BTC set its record of $126,080 on October 6, 2025. Daily figures come from CoinGecko, checked August 16, 2026.
Patience is the price of admission here.
3. Ethereum at $1,878.04, the Chain Behind the Sale
Ethereum gained 0.3 percent to $1,878.04, worth $226.6 billion across roughly 120.7 million coins. ETH peaked at $4,946.05 on August 24, 2025, and Ethereum dominance now reads 10.06 percent.
Anyone joining the Bullski sale already needs an Ethereum wallet, so ETH doubles as a holding and as the fuel for the purchase.
Coin
Aug 16, 2026 price
Market cap
Move today
Highest print
Holding period it suits
$BULLSKI
$0.000015 on stage 2
Presale, 120 billion fixed supply
Set by the rung
None yet, listing reference $0.0025
Long hold from the smallest published entry price
Bitcoin (BTC)
$62,971
$1.264T
+0.4%
$126,080 (Oct 6, 2025)
Multi-year core position
Ethereum (ETH)
$1,878.04
$226.6B
+0.3%
$4,946.05 (Aug 24, 2025)
Long hold plus wallet gas for the sale
XRP
$1.002
$62.8B
-0.1%
$3.65 (Jul 17, 2025)
Liquid, easy to trade in and out
Dogecoin (DOGE)
$0.0699
$10.88B
+0.7%
$0.7316 (May 7, 2021)
Short bursts driven by attention
Compare the first column with the last. Traders asking which crypto to buy today for short-term positions gravitate to the liquid names, XRP and Dogecoin, where volume is deep. Buyers thinking in years read the entry price column instead, and $BULLSKI sits at the bottom of it at $0.000015.
4. XRP at $1.002, the Liquid Middle
XRP dipped 0.1 percent to $1.002, holding a $62.8 billion market cap, the third largest number here. Its record of $3.65 dates from July 17, 2025. Cross-border payments give it a use case, and coverage on almost every crypto exchange makes entries and exits simple.
Flat days like this one are common.
5. Dogecoin at $0.0699, the Attention Trade
Dogecoin added 0.7 percent to $0.0699 for a $10.88 billion market cap, the best move among the listed coins today. DOGE peaked at $0.7316 on May 7, 2021. Attention drives it more than releases do.
Meme coins as a group hold $24.86 billion and traded $1.02 billion in the past 24 hours.
By the numbers: Dogecoin needed a $10.88 billion market cap to price at $0.0699, and XRP needed $62.8 billion to reach $1.002. Stage 2 asks $0.000015 with no market cap behind it yet.
Reading a Sold-Out Rung as a Demand Signal
A sold-out allocation is data, not marketing. Buyers cleared 1,192,283,023 tokens at the opening price, and total sales across the ladder now read 1,193,661,238. Sell-outs also explain why the step price moves in one direction only.
We covered the wider shortlist in our note on the best crypto to invest in for 2026, and our list of the best crypto to buy in 2026 ranks it against the majors.
Terms Worth Checking Before You Send Anything
Four checks cover most of the risk. Look for a fixed supply, liquidity that locks at launch, vested team tokens and a verified contract. Bullski publishes all four, with the contract itself viewable on Etherscan and an audit in process.
Read the terms $BULLSKI publishes and compare them with any other sale you are weighing.
Watch out: Screenshots of a stage counter go stale within hours. Open the official site and read the live rung yourself before sending funds.
Claiming the Current Rung While It Fills
Waiting has a measurable cost in a sale like this. The opening rung shut at $0.00001, the live one prices at $0.000015, and $0.00002 is what the next asks for exactly the same token. Prices on Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP and Dogecoin shift while you read this sentence.
A rung does not, so the decision here is about timing rather than luck.
Buy $BULLSKI at $0.000015: an Ethereum wallet funded in ETH, BNB or USDT comes first, the official site comes next, the rung showing on screen tells you the price, and from there you claim the $BULLSKI stage two price before this allocation clears.
Do your own research before buying any presale token. This article is not financial advice.
Questions Buyers Ask When Picking a Coin
Which Crypto Is the Best to Buy Now?
Time frame decides it, not a leaderboard. Bitcoin at $62,971 suits a multi-year hold. XRP at $1.002 suits money that has to stay liquid.
Buyers who want the smallest published entry take $BULLSKI at $0.000015, since stage 1 already sold out at $0.00001.
Which Crypto Coin Is Best to Buy Now for a Small Ticket?
Cheap tokens stretch a small budget, though price alone proves nothing. Anyone weighing which crypto coin to buy now with a small ticket should compare tokens per dollar. Dogecoin at $0.0699 buys plenty of units with a real market behind it.
Presale buyers go smaller and pick up 66,666 tokens per dollar at $0.000015, with a fixed 120 billion supply printed in advance.
What Crypto to Buy Now for a First Position?
Anyone asking what crypto to buy now for a first position should start with something they can explain to a friend. Both Bitcoin and Ethereum cover that easily, with deep liquidity behind them. Add a small presale ticket only after the larger holdings are in place, and never spend money earmarked for rent or bills.
Which Crypto to Buy Today for Day Trading?
Day trading needs volume, tight spreads and an exchange listing, which rules a presale out by design. XRP and Dogecoin fit that job, with $62.8 billion and $10.88 billion behind them. A stage price like $0.000015 is a buy-and-wait entry, not a scalping tool.
For More Information
Website: Visit the official Bullski website at bullski.io
Telegram: Join the Bullski Telegram channel at t.me/BullskiCoinOfficial
X (Twitter): Follow Bullski on X at x.com/bullskicoin
Disclaimer: This is a Press Release provided by a third party who is responsible for the content. Please conduct your own research before taking any action based on the content.
Bitcoin and crypto prices have limped through 2026, despite U.S. president Donald Trump’s support and the Federal Reserve’s bitcoin nightmare suddenly coming true.
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The bitcoin price has just about managed to keep its head above water even after crashing by around 50% since October last year, with the bitcoin price trading sideways at around $60,000 for the last six months.
Now, as BlackRock reveals it’s just seen something shift, Trump is expected to attend a major bitcoin and crypto company meeting at the White House this coming week, according to various reports.
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ForbesThe Fed’s Bitcoin Nightmare Is Suddenly Coming TrueBy Billy Bambrough
MORE FOR YOU
U.S. president Donald Trump is expected to attend a major bitcoin and crypto company meeting this week, according to reports citing anonymous sources.
Getty Images
The meeting is due to bring together bitcoin and crypto company executives from the likes of Coinbase, Ripple, Gemini, Robinhood, Polymarket and Kalshi with top regulators Michael Selig, chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), and Paul Atkins, the chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
U.S. Treasury secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce secretary Howard Lutnick may also attend, according to a Coindesk report, citing anonymous sources.
The meeting was first reported by Politico, citing anonymous sources, with Bloomberg sources adding that Trump is expected to attend.
The Wednesday White House meeting will take place just before Thursday’s Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC’s) meeting of its Innovation Advisory Committee, a panel made up of executives from top crypto, finance and prediction market companies.
After the long-awaited crypto market strucure bill known as the Clarity Act failed to get a Senate vote before the August recess, U.S. Senate majority leader John Thune scheduled a key procedural vote for the bill in mid-September, potentially paving the way for a full floor vote on the bill.
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ForbesIt’s Going ‘Significantly Higher’—BlackRock Just Quietly Called The Bitcoin Price BottomBy Billy Bambrough
The bitcoin price has flatlined this year, though many see bitcoin turning a corner.
Forbes Digital Assets
“Recent progress on the Clarity Act suggests that Washington continues to move toward establishing a clearer regulatory framework for digital assets,” Linh Tran, market analyst at XS.com, said in emailed comments.
“This is unlikely to serve as an immediate catalyst for bitcoin prices, but over the longer term, greater regulatory clarity could help reduce one of the key risks that has historically made traditional institutions cautious about entering the crypto market.”
The odds of the Clarity Act passing into law this year have plummeted in recent months on the Polymarket and Kalshi prediction platforms, dropping to around 20% from a peak of around 80% in the first few months of the year.
"The picture in bitcoin is more constructive than it has been in months, but every indicator that matters is stacked into a single resistance zone between $67,000 and $70,000," Andreja Cobeljic, head of derivatives trading at Amina Bank, said in an emailed note. “The Clarity Act could break the stalemate in either direction, but its probability has dropped and it has become partisan.”
Bitcoin could bottom in October before recovering to around $130,000 ahead of the 2028 halving, according to Swan Bitcoin CEO Cory Klippsten.
Bitcoin’s (BTC) price peaked above $126,000 in early October 2025, meaning that the “market should bottom in October,” Klippsten told Cointelegraph.
He argued that Bitcoin has so far bottomed about 12 months after each previous bull market peak, while cautioning against extrapolating from only a few previous cycles.
Klippsten’s prediction for an October bottom builds on a June interview with Cointelegraph, when he said Bitcoin may bottom earlier than in previous cycles as long-term holders accumulated a record share of supply, or 14.7 million BTC.
In the latest interview, Klippsten said Bitcoin could fall to $57,000, or even $53,000, before a quick recovery, and could reach around $130,000 ahead of the 2028 halving.
Other analytics providers are eyeing an earlier bottom. Markus Thielen, founder of 10x Research, said that Bitcoin could confirm a bear-market bottom in August with a monthly close above $63,000, which would turn several of the analytics firm’s cycle indicators bullish.
Altcoins are dead as money, crypto will become TradFiKlippsten said altcoins are “basically dead” as competitors to Bitcoin as money, arguing that the best outcome for crypto and decentralized finance (DeFi) is to “become part of TradFi.”
When asked about his thoughts on altcoins that may outperform the broader market, Klippsten pointed to Hyperliquid, arguing that centralized crypto businesses will eventually be brought under traditional finance regulation.
“Hyperliquid is a business and it has a token. If it’s a business that’s centralized, it will eventually just get sucked up by TradFi and be thought of as an exchange and a bank.” Hyperliquid generated $5.9 million in revenue during the past week, ranking as the industry’s fifth-largest DeFi protocol by weekly revenue, according to DefiLlama.
The Hyperliquid (HYPE) token rose 130% year-to-date, while Bitcoin’s price fell 28% during the same period, TradingView data shows.
BTC and HYPE tokens, year-to-date chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView
In a July report, crypto market maker Wintermute argued that the growing presence of institutional investors has changed the dynamics of altcoin markets, resulting in altcoin rallies becoming narrower and more selective. Wintermute said liquidity was concentrating in the assets institutions favored while activity across the market’s “long tail” weakened.
Magazine: Bitcoiners turn to dice throws as self-custody setups are re-evaluated
This article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph's Editorial Policy and is intended for informational purposes only. It does not constitute investment advice or recommendations. All investments and trades carry risk; readers are encouraged to conduct independent research.
TLDR: Bitcoin supply now exceeds 20.07 million BTC, placing about 95.57% of the protocol maximum into theoretical circulation today. Bitcoin apparent demand improved by about 240,000 BTC since early June, but its negative reading still signals incomplete absorption. BTC trades near $63,000 inside a projected $58,000 to $67,000 range, with $65,000 and $67,000 acting as upside tests for buyers. U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs posted $57.63 million in net outflows on August 14, extending withdrawals to a third consecutive session. Bitcoin supply has crossed 20.07 million coins, leaving fewer than 930,000 BTC before the network reaches its programmed limit. Bitcoin recently traded close to $62,925, gaining about 0.2% during the session. Its intraday range stretched from $62,538 to $63,165, reflecting restrained momentum around the $63,000 level.
The milestone arrives while Bitcoin apparent demand shows a substantial improvement from early June. Still, the indicator remains below zero, meaning structural accumulation has not fully absorbed available issuance. Binance founder Changpeng Zhao highlighted the milestone. Meanwhile, market watchers focused on lost coins, ETF withdrawals, and nearby price boundaries for the remainder of August.
Bitcoin BTC Price Bitcoin Supply Nears Its Programmed 21 Million Ceiling Newhedge network data places circulating supply at 20,070,465.625 BTC. That equals about 95.57% of the fixed 21 million maximum. Around 929,534 BTC therefore remains for future block rewards.
Blockchain.com explains that the theoretical reward schedule calculates circulating Bitcoin. It also notes that some coins are permanently lost or unspendable through forgotten keys, invalid addresses, or script errors. Consequently, mined supply does not equal liquid or accessible supply.
Zhao estimated that 10% to 20% of existing coins may be lost or stuck. That estimate would reduce effective availability by roughly 2.01 million to 4.01 million BTC. The exact amount cannot be verified on-chain since dormant coins can move after long intervals.
Bitcoin surpassed 20.07 million coins mined as of August 2026, leaving only 4.4% more supply.
I'd estimate 10-20% of existing bitcoins are lost/stuck/unrecoverable. It's a deflationary asset.
— CZ 🔶 BNB (@cz_binance) August 15, 2026
Bitcoin supply grows by 3.125 BTC for each valid block. With blocks averaging roughly ten minutes, issuance runs near 450 BTC daily. The protocol halves that subsidy every 210,000 blocks, or approximately every four years.
The 2024 halving lowered rewards from 6.25 BTC, strengthening the asset’s disinflationary issuance path. The final fractions are expected around 2140, although most Bitcoin supply will enter circulation much earlier. This pattern makes the 20.07 million threshold symbolic, not a sudden supply shock.
The Bitcoin supply milestone also differs from a shortage. Available BTC changes with holder behavior, exchange balances, miner sales, and institutional flows.
Apparent Demand Improves While BTC Holds Its Range CryptoQuant analyst Darkfost noted apparent demand improved to negative 32,000 BTC from negative 272,000 BTC in early June. The 240,000 BTC shift marks progress, but demand still trails the amount entering active supply.
Source: CryptoQuant The metric compares newly mined coins with changes in supply inactive for more than one year. A negative reading indicates structural holding is insufficient to absorb fresh or reactivated coins. Darkfost saw comparable improvements in February and May before demand weakened again.
He also linked part of the improvement to reduced average mining production amid a hash-rate pullback. Lower issuance can improve the measure without a matching expansion in spot buying. Sustained readings above zero would provide clearer confirmation of accumulation.
Meanwhile, U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $57.63 million in net outflows on August 14. BlackRock’s IBIT accounted for $55.51 million, while Fidelity’s FBTC shed $6.84 million. Bitwise’s BITB drew $6.14 million, partly offsetting those withdrawals.
The withdrawals marked a third straight session of net ETF outflows. They contrast with Bitcoin’s apparent demand’s improvement, showing that one on-chain measure does not capture every source of buying. ETF flows can change daily and need broader trend confirmation.
Trader Tanaka assigns a 50% probability to continued trading between $58,000 and $67,000 during August. The analyst expects most activity between $60,000 and $65,000. This base case matches the recent consolidation around $63,000.
How I’m looking at $BTC rn: 3 possible scenarios 👇$BTC is currently trading around $63K, and I’m looking at 3 main scenarios for the rest of Aug.
[1] Sideways: 50% This is still my base case. I expect BTC to keep ranging between $58K–$67K, with most of the action around… pic.twitter.com/Z7jiAIP724
— Tanaka (@Tanaka_L2) August 15, 2026
A clean break below $58,000 to $60,000 would shift focus toward $52,000 to $55,000 in Tanaka’s bearish scenario. Conversely, Bitcoin must reclaim $65,000 and clear $67,000 to $68,000 with stronger volume. The BTC price currently remains inside that wider range. Negative demand now narrows as Bitcoin supply rises at its programmed pace.
The numbers behind the oft-cited prediction that Bitcoin will reach $1 million by 2030 simply don’t add up, according to Markus Thielen, head of research at 10x Research.
“It’s mathematically impossible,” Thielen tells Cointelegraph on Trade Secrets, arguing that Bitcoin’s historical capital inflows over the past 15 years fall far short of the amount it would need to attract over the next four years to reach $1 million. “We have seen $1 trillion US dollars of inflow to bring the market cap really to $1 trillion. To $1 million [per] Bitcoin. It’s 15x, I think, from here,” Thielen says.
At the time of publication, Bitcoin’s market cap is around $1.28 trillion, with its price trading at $63,868, according to CoinMarketCap.
Thielen estimates that Bitcoin would need to attract another $15 trillion in capital to reach a per Bitcoin price of $1 million. This is equivalent to roughly 25% of the US stock market’s total value flowing into Bitcoin over the next four years.
“It would require trillions,” says Thielen“It takes trillions and trillions of dollars to move the price really materially higher, and that’s why we are not as bullish as those arguments which we think are totally mathematically unrealistic because it would require trillions,” Thielen says.
Bitcoin is down 2.35% over the past 30 days. (CoinMarketCap)
Thielen says the higher Bitcoin’s price goes, the weaker retail sentiment becomes, partly due to the psychology of investors wanting to own a whole unit of an asset.
“I think a lot of people kind of wondered, maybe I should just rather buy a new car than buy one Bitcoin, or should I really work a whole year for just one Bitcoin?” Thielen says. “People don’t want to buy a tenth or a hundredth of a Bitcoin; they want to buy a whole Bitcoin. You don’t want to buy a fraction of a painting.”
“Satoshis doesn’t really sound as interesting as Bitcoin,” Thielen says.
He warns Bitcoiners not just to expect Bitcoin to rebound as it has in previous cycles, and the $126,000 all-time high may not reappear as quickly as investors expect.
“Usually, it takes some time because we are at a higher market cap, and that usually takes a lot of money to push the Bitcoin price higher. So I wouldn’t argue that next year we’re gonna see new highs. If we go back to, let’s say, $100K, that would already be, I think, a big, big achievement,” Thielen says.
$1 million Bitcoin has been touted by well-known industry executivesThe prediction that Bitcoin will reach $1 million by 2030 has been made by prominent industry figures, including Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and ARK Invest CEO Cathie Wood. Thielen argues that such bold forecasts are an easy way for executives to generate media attention.
(Brian Armstrong)
“Round numbers and the higher the number, the more it’s being quoted by the press,” Thielen says, arguing that extravagant predictions tend to do more harm than good.
“These optimistic price targets tend to hurt retail investors because they sort of think, OK, if this is only halfway right, then I’m gonna make a lot of money,” Thielen says.
“I think nearly everybody was still very bullish and projected higher prices [but] we came into the year already quite conservative, and you know, I think our conservative approach has been the right strategy,” Thielen says.
Cointelegraph asked Thielen which year Bitcoiners might reasonably expect Bitcoin could reach $1 million. “I don’t want to say never, but I do think, you know, a million is really a high number,” Thielen says.
“It would require, you know, a major credit event, implosion of everything.”Cointelegraph publishes long-form journalism, analysis and narrative reporting produced by Cointelegraph’s in-house editorial team with subject-matter expertise. All articles are edited and reviewed by Cointelegraph editors in line with our editorial standards. Some articles contain affiliate links, from which Cointelegraph may earn a commission. These relationships do not influence which products we review or our editorial conclusions. Content published in here does not constitute financial, legal or investment advice. Readers should conduct their own research and consult qualified professionals where appropriate. Cointelegraph maintains full editorial independence.
Bitcoin remained under pressure on Monday, trading close to $63,000 as multiple failed attempts to surpass the $65,000 mark kept the leading cryptocurrency within a narrow range. Analysts identified $65,000 as a significant resistance level that has repeatedly halted upward momentum over recent sessions.
Key resistance holds, buyers lose momentumRecent technical analysis from Daan Crypto Trades, a well-followed digital asset analyst, pointed to the persistence of the $65,000 resistance zone. He noted that buyers have not yet managed to regain control of the market, while equities have continued to outperform cryptocurrencies.
Bitcoin’s weekly chart currently displays the coin trading near $63,000, after yet another rejection at the $65,000 level. Historically, rallies have lost steam around this price point, creating a significant barrier for bullish market participants.
A broader resistance zone exists in the $72,000 to $74,000 range, which has previously served as both a support and resistance area during prior cycles. Analysts believe that clearing this upper region would signal a robust rebuilding of Bitcoin’s bullish structure.
Until a sustained breakout occurs, Bitcoin remains trapped beneath key technical thresholds and could face renewed selling pressure if buyers do not manage to drive the price above resistance.
On the downside, the 0.618 Fibonacci retracement level near $57,825 represents the most prominent support on the current chart. A slide below this area could weaken the ongoing recovery effort and expose Bitcoin to a deeper pullback.
Daan Crypto Trades continues to accumulate Bitcoin cautiously, keeping extra capital on hand for further dips, and does not see a scenario where Bitcoin trades substantially below $40,000 unless an unexpected market shock takes place.
Analysts agree that for the near-term outlook to improve, Bitcoin needs to reclaim $65,000 and then break through the upper $72,000-$74,000 barrier to confirm a clear bullish reversal. Conversely, a breakdown below the $57,825 support may trigger additional losses.
Support and resistance levels define trading outlookBitcoin currently sits within a well-defined price range, with traders watching for a decisive move in either direction. EliZ, another prominent cryptocurrency trader, identified $60,000-$61,000 as key support and $65,000-$66,000 as primary resistance zones to monitor.
On the 12-hour BTC/USDT chart, Bitcoin hovers around $62,736, putting it roughly halfway between these two technical boundaries. This middle area is vulnerable to false moves and uncertain direction, making it less attractive for active trading.
The same chart indicates that Bitcoin has recently dipped below a rising trendline that had guided its rebound from the late June low, which weakens the short-term technical structure but does not yet represent a full break of support.
EliZ is waiting for Bitcoin to test one of the range edges before considering a trade. Near $60,000-$61,000, a quick drop below and subsequent recovery might indicate that sellers cannot sustain downward pressure. On the other hand, failing to reclaim this level after a breakdown would reinforce the bearish pattern.
Similarly, surpassing the $65,000-$66,000 resistance—especially if Bitcoin manages to hold the level on a retest—would signal a potential shift to bullish momentum. However, a descending trendline in the vicinity adds to the resistance ahead.
A clear move near either $60,000-$61,000 or $65,000-$66,000 is seen as necessary for a more definitive signal regarding Bitcoin’s next direction.
Until such a move unfolds, many traders expect continued choppy trading in the middle of the current range as they await further clarity.
Support levelCurrent priceResistance level$57,825 (Fibonacci) / $60,000-$61,000$63,000$65,000-$66,000 / $72,000-$74,000Mini dictionary: Daan Crypto Trades and EliZ are independent cryptocurrency analysts known for sharing technical analysis and trading strategies on social media platforms, particularly X (formerly Twitter).
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.
Markus Thielen, head of research at digital asset analysis firm 10x Research, has challenged predictions that Bitcoin could reach $1 million by the end of the decade, stating that the mathematics behind such forecasts do not add up.
Why $1 million is out of reachThielen explained that Bitcoin would require an unprecedented scale of capital inflows to reach a $1 million price point within the next six years. He calculated that over the past 15 years, the total inflows into Bitcoin amounted to roughly $1 trillion, resulting in its current market capitalization, which stands at about $1.28 trillion. As of now, Bitcoin changes hands at $63,868, according to CoinMarketCap.
Pushing the price to $1 million per Bitcoin would require an additional $15 trillion of net inflow over the next four years. Thielen pointed out this figure represents around a quarter of the entire US stock market’s total value, making such growth rates impractical.
“It takes trillions and trillions of dollars to move the price materially higher,” Thielen noted, emphasizing that this scale of fresh investment is highly unlikely given existing market structures.
“It’s mathematically impossible. We have seen $1 trillion US dollars of inflow to bring the market cap really to $1 trillion. To get to $1 million [per] Bitcoin, it’s 15x from here.”
For comparison, Bitcoin has declined 2.35% over the past 30 days, reflecting a broader cooling in retail and institutional interest.
Retail psychology and investor sentimentThielen also commented on the dwindling appetite from retail investors as Bitcoin’s valuation climbs. He suggested that many individuals become hesitant to invest in the cryptocurrency at higher price points, especially when the cost of one whole Bitcoin outstrips significant personal purchases such as cars.
He remarked that people often prefer owning a full unit of an asset rather than fractions, a sentiment that may limit further adoption if prices continue to surge. Thielen stated, “People don’t want to buy a tenth or a hundredth of a Bitcoin; they want to buy a whole Bitcoin. You don’t want to buy a fraction of a painting.”
He also observed that the concept of “Satoshis”—the smallest divisible unit of Bitcoin—lacks broad appeal compared to owning a whole Bitcoin.
Looking ahead, Thielen warned investors not to assume that Bitcoin will quickly reclaim record highs in future cycles due to the greater market capitalization and capital required. He does not expect to see the previous all-time high of $126,000 return in the near term without significant new inflows.
“Usually, it takes some time because we are at a higher market cap, and that usually takes a lot of money to push the Bitcoin price higher. If we go back to, let’s say, $100,000, that would already be a big achievement.”
Bold predictions from industry leadersPredictions for a $1 million Bitcoin by 2030 have been made by key industry figures such as Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, and ARK Invest CEO Cathie Wood. Thielen stated that these ambitious forecasts often serve to attract media attention, but they may also set unrealistic expectations for retail investors.
He argued that “round numbers and the higher the number, the more it’s being quoted by the press,” adding that such optimistic price targets can mislead individual investors into believing substantial gains are inevitable if only a portion of these predictions comes true.
Thielen explained that his team at 10x Research maintains a more cautious approach, noting they entered the year with relatively conservative projections that have proven prudent in hindsight.
When asked about the possibility of Bitcoin reaching $1 million, Thielen responded that while he would not rule it out completely, such a price point remains “really a high number.”
Mini dictionary: 10x Research is a digital asset research and analysis firm that provides institutional-level reports and market insights in the cryptocurrency sector.
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.
Coinbase makes a comprehensive push into AiFi, building financial infrastructure for the AI agent economy.
According to official announcements, Coinbase has announced a full-scale push into the "Agentic Economy", covering three groups: users who utilize AI agents, enterprises that provide services to AI agents, and developers building products and infrastructure for AI agents. Coinbase says it is constructing a comprehensive financial service system for AI agents: AI agents can conduct research, planning, decision-making, and trading on its "Everything Exchange", covering assets including cryptocurrencies, stocks, derivatives, and more. The company is also launching Coinbase Advisor, an AI investment advisor built into the Coinbase app to assist users in making investment decisions.
On the enterprise front, Coinbase is introducing payment capabilities for AI agents, allowing businesses to accept USDC payments from AI agents via Coinbase Business, with native integration of the x402 standard—no need to build separate payment processes. Coinbase notes that this solution eliminates credit card-style chargeback risks, idle USDC can earn 3.35% rewards, and enterprises can manage funds, reconcile accounts, and withdraw funds all within the same account. Additionally, Coinbase has launched the CDP x402 SDK, enabling developers to integrate AI agent payment capabilities into APIs or MCPs with just approximately 3 lines of code, without requiring deep expertise in x402 technology.
Coinbase adds that as AI agents gain autonomous payment capabilities, they also require a marketplace to discover and purchase services. The x402 is emerging as an open payment standard for machines, enabling agent-to-agent transactions without human intervention; when AI agents need capital, they can turn to Coinbase. The company refers to this entire ecosystem as "AI Finance" (AiFi), stating that the global economy is being restructured around AI agents.
26 minutes ago
Meme token "Niu Lai" on BSC briefly surged past $15 million in market capitalization, with its price rising more than 150 times in 24 hours.
According to GMGN market data, the market capitalization of the Meme coin "Niu Lai" on BNB Chain briefly exceeded $15 million, and is currently trading at $14.2 million, surging more than 150 times in 24 hours. Recently, the summer animated film "Niu Lai" unexpectedly gained widespread attention due to controversies over its visual production. A relative of the director revealed that the film was created entirely by the director and his mother—no production team was hired, and all work was done manually over five years. As of press time, today's box office has reached 852,800 yuan. BlockBeats reminds users that most Meme coins lack practical use cases, feature highly volatile prices, and thus require caution for investment.
26 minutes ago
Google will allow users to remove visible watermarks from its AI-generated content.
Google announced that users can now remove visible watermarks from its AI-generated content, including images, videos, and songs. The company clarified that this change does not impact invisible SynthID watermarks or metadata related to the C2PA standard. Josh Woodward, vice president of Google Gemini, stated in a post that this toggle will apply to the Nano Banana, Omni, and Lyria models. He added that the setting to turn off visible watermarks will be available in Gemini and Google’s Video Editor Flow, with support for Search launching soon. The feature will roll out gradually over the coming days; once live, users can access "Settings > Media Watermarks" to enable or disable visible watermarks. Google has also open-sourced a new library named Credentio, designed to help developers embed local verification mechanisms into their own applications.
26 minutes ago
Stepping into the fray! DeFiLlama reported the fraudulent app for months to no avail, and only after testing it themselves and falling victim to theft did Apple finally take it down from its App Store.
DeFiLlama founder 0xngmi posted on social media that for months, he has been working to get Apple’s App Store to take down a fake app impersonating DeFiLlama, repeatedly reporting trademark infringement and unauthorized impersonation of the official app to Apple. The team then loaded a small amount of funds into a test wallet, downloaded the fake application, and as expected, all funds in the wallet were stolen. The incident was reported to Apple, and the app was removed from the store within days. 0xngmi noted that he hopes other cryptocurrency companies will learn from this to avoid wasting time on similar efforts, as his team did.
26 minutes ago
Iran says it has reached an agreement with Oman on the plan for passage through the Strait of Hormuz.
According to CCTV News, on local time August 15, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Baghaei said that despite US obstruction, talks between Iran and Oman are still advancing actively, and the two sides have reached an agreement on a navigation plan for the Strait of Hormuz.
26 minutes ago
Thrive Capital took a $215 million position in Amazon shares.
According to Bloomberg, Joshua Kushner’s Thrive Capital has purchased approximately $215 million worth of Amazon shares, continuing the venture capital firm’s strategy of expanding into public market investments. The investment was disclosed in a regulatory filing on Friday, giving Thrive exposure to a large company that stands to benefit from artificial intelligence. Amazon gains from AI through offerings such as generative AI shopping tools and cloud computing infrastructure for other businesses. Earlier this month, Amazon’s market capitalization crossed $3 trillion for the first time, making it the fifth company to reach that milestone. Thrive declined to comment, while a representative for Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Thrive is known for early investments in firms including SpaceX, Stripe and OpenAI—OpenAI also has backing from Amazon. The VC firm’s other public market holdings include Figma Inc., StubHub Holdings Inc., and Oscar Health, which Kushner co-founded and incubated.
United Arab Emirates (UAE) is still doubling down on Bitcoin via its sovereign wealth funds.
In the latest 13F filings with the U.S SEC, one of its funds, Mubadala, reported owning 14.7 million shares (worth $490M) of BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin ETF (IBIT).
Source: SEC A separate fund, Abu Dhabi Investment Council, also reported 8.2 million shares of IBIT (worth $273.6M). Collectively, the two funds own $763.6M worth of BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF.
Notably, the BTC exposure is the second largest by value in the 13F filings for Mubadala. For Abu Dhabi Investment Council, BTC was the largest holding based on the latest 13F filings.
These holdings have not changed from the Q1 reporting. In fact, at the end of Q4 2025, UAE wealth funds held a cumulative value of over $1B in BTC exposure via BlackRock’s IBIT. This bid came right after BTC’s sharp drop from over $126K to below $100K.
In other words, the UAE is bullish on BTC despite the prolonged crypto winter.
BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF sees new demand That said, BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF has seen improved demand in August, breaking the decline trend observed in 2026. According to Fintel, citing the latest 13F filings, IBIT’s institutional ownership increased to 374 million shares in August.
The institutional ownership contracted from its peak of 432 million IBIT shares in February to a low of 361M in July-A 16% decline. The uptick in August meant that there was increased demand from institutional players.
Source: Fintel The renewed appetite from institutional investors may offer hope to BTC bulls.
In terms of flows, the broader U.S BTC ETFs have slowed the massive bleed-out seen in May.
Although the products have yet to fully and decisively turn green and positive, the slowing of intense outflows seen in Q2 could offer some stability for BTC’s price.
Source: Glassnode Overall, the UAE’s BTC exposure was not a surprise, as the country has been bullish since 2025. However, what’s surprising is the UAE’s unwavering faith in the asset despite the sharp decline during the crypto winter.
Final Summary UAE’s wealth funds reported combined holdings of $763.6M worth of BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF Institutional appetite for BlackRock’s improved in August after a 16% decline in 2026
Paul Tudor Jones in New York in 2018. (Kevin Mazur/Getty Images)Summary
Tudor raised its IBIT stake by 18.9% to 688,529 shares, worth $22.9 million, as of June 30.The stake remains 91.4% below its 2024 peak and equals roughly 0.03% of Tudor’s reported 13F securities.Tudor Jones has repeatedly framed bitcoin as an inflation trade. Tudor Investment, founded by billionaire investor Paul Tudor Jones, increased its direct stake in BlackRock’s spot bitcoin ETF in the second quarter while cutting its reported call option position in the fund by 85%.
The firm held 688,529 shares of the iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT), valued at $22.9 million as of June 30, according to a 13F filing on Friday.
The share count rose by 109,446, or 18.9%, from 579,083 at the end of March. The holdings are now worth around $24.5 million.
Tudor also reported calls tied to 148,000 underlying IBIT shares, down 85.2% from 998,000 in March. Its put position edged down 1.4% to 715,000 underlying shares from 725,000, according to the filings.
The filing does not disclose the options’ strike prices or expiration dates, so the underlying share counts do not provide a direct measure of Tudor’s directional exposure. And the derivatives positionings are likely a hedging mechanism for its bitcoin bets.
Tudor first disclosed 869,565 IBIT shares in mid-2024 and increased the position to 8.05 million shares, worth $427 million by year-end. It then cut the stake in every quarter of 2025, ending December with 576,523 shares.
The firm’s initial buildup came as bitcoin rallied from around $60,000 to $92,000, while cuts then came into strength. In the second and third quarters of last year, BTC rallied to an all-time high of $124,000, while Tudor reduced its exposure. As bitcoin began to crash, Tudor’s share count hit its low.
Even after the latest purchases, the direct-share position remained 91.4% below its late-2024 peak and accounted for only a fraction of the $71.9 billion in the company’s portfolio.
Tudor Jones has repeatedly framed bitcoin as an inflation trade. He said in 2024 that “all roads lead to inflation” and disclosed that he was long bitcoin and gold, then called bitcoin the “best inflation hedge” in April this year, citing its fixed supply as an advantage over gold.
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Building the Zcash Machine: Tachyon and Quantum Readiness
Building the Zcash Machine: Tachyon and Quantum Readiness
Zcash’s Tachyon upgrade aims to scale shielded payments, improve quantum readiness, and test whether its funding, security, and governance can hold.
Jun 30, 2026
Zcash’s Tachyon upgrade aims to scale shielded payments, improve quantum readiness, and test whether its funding, security, and governance can hold.
Why it matters:
Zcash’s Tachyon upgrade aims to scale shielded payments, improve quantum readiness, and test whether its funding, security, and governance can hold.
The Kremlin in Moscow (Artem Beliaikin/Unsplash)Summary
Moscow and parts of Kursk banned crypto mining and pool participation through Dec. 31, 2032, under government decree No. 936 to preserve power grid stability.The Energy Ministry enacted the year-round restriction to mitigate power-capacity shortages as energy-intensive mining facilities continue to strain regional grids.This decision follows Russia's legalization of registered mining in 2024 and subsequent bans in 10 other regions due to rising electricity demand.Crypto mining was banned in Moscow, the surrounding Moscow Region and parts of Kursk, with the restrictions set to run through Dec. 31, 2032.
The measure, established under government decree No. 936, also prohibits participation in crypto mining pools. The decree was signed on July 25 and published on July 31, local media reports.
Russia as a whole accounted for an estimated 175 exahashes per second, or 16.4% of Bitcoin’s global computing power, in the first quarter, according to Luxor’s Hashrate Index. That placed it second behind the U.S., although it’s unclear what capacity was located in the newly restricted region.
The country’s Energy Ministry said a year-round restriction was needed to reduce the risk of power-capacity shortages as energy-intensive mining facilities connect to regional grids. Mining currently consumes roughly 1 gigawatt in the Moscow power system, while the region’s data-center capacity could reach 3.6 GW, or 17% of peak demand, by 2032, Interfax reported after the decree was first signed.
Mining is also linked to the country’s Western sanctions.
Russian companies had been using domestically mined bitcoin in international payments after legal changes designed to counter Western restrictions, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said in December 2024.
Legislation passed by parliament in July maintained Russia’s ban on domestic crypto payments but preserved exceptions for foreign-trade settlements and transactions involving mined cryptocurrency, keeping the mechanism available as sanctions restrict conventional payment channels.
Adding to that, the U.S. Treasury sanctioned BitRiver and 10 subsidiaries in 2022, saying Russian mining companies helped the country monetize its energy resources and could offset the impact of sanctions.
Russia legalized registered crypto mining back in 2024, before banning the activity in 10 regions through March 2031, citing electricity demand. Year-round restrictions were later extended to southern Irkutsk and most areas of Buryatia and Zabaykalsky Krai.
12345678910
Building the Zcash Machine: Tachyon and Quantum Readiness
Building the Zcash Machine: Tachyon and Quantum Readiness
Zcash’s Tachyon upgrade aims to scale shielded payments, improve quantum readiness, and test whether its funding, security, and governance can hold.
Jun 30, 2026
Zcash’s Tachyon upgrade aims to scale shielded payments, improve quantum readiness, and test whether its funding, security, and governance can hold.
Why it matters:
Zcash’s Tachyon upgrade aims to scale shielded payments, improve quantum readiness, and test whether its funding, security, and governance can hold.
UBS boosted its quarterly call option exposure for BlackRock's IBIT by over 24-fold, reaching 1.95 million underlying shares as of June 30.Direct holdings of IBIT also rose 12% to 407,890 shares, while put option exposure dropped roughly 53% to 143,300 underlying shares during the quarter.The filing doesn't clarify if the increase stems from client initiatives, dealer hedging, market-making, or proprietary exposure, and lacks strike prices.Banking giant UBS, with over $7 trillion in assets under management, has reported a more than 24-fold quarterly increase in call option exposure tied to BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) in the second quarter.
That increase, which gives it the right to acquire IBIT shares at a later date at a set price, came as its outright IBIT holdings rose about 12%, according to a regulatory filing this week.
The Swiss banking group reported calls representing 1.95 million underlying IBIT shares as of June 30, up from 80,000 three months earlier. UBS separately held 407,890 IBIT shares worth about $13.6 million, compared with 364,371 shares at the end of the first quarter, according to its Q1 filing.
Put option exposure, giving UBS the right but not the obligation to sell IBIT at a set date and price, moved in the opposite direction. UBS reported puts representing 143,300 underlying shares, down about 53% from 303,300 at the end of March.
Its direct IBIT position also remained below the 548,614 shares reported at the end of 2025, according to its fourth-quarter filing.
UBS 13-filing for IBIT. (CoinDesk)The disclosure also does not include strike prices or expirations, making it difficult to determine UBS’s net directional exposure from the filing alone.
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12345678910Building the Zcash Machine: Tachyon and Quantum Readiness
Building the Zcash Machine: Tachyon and Quantum Readiness
Zcash’s Tachyon upgrade aims to scale shielded payments, improve quantum readiness, and test whether its funding, security, and governance can hold.
Jun 30, 2026
Zcash’s Tachyon upgrade aims to scale shielded payments, improve quantum readiness, and test whether its funding, security, and governance can hold.
Why it matters:
Zcash’s Tachyon upgrade aims to scale shielded payments, improve quantum readiness, and test whether its funding, security, and governance can hold.
As the next Bitcoin halving event continues to draw closer, Binance's founder, Changpeng Zhao, has reignited debates on the longstanding discussion about Bitcoin's scarcity.
In a post issued earlier today, CZ emphasized Bitcoin's nature, noting that it is a deflationary asset and its available supply may actually be less than expected.
20% of Bitcoin irrecoverableIn his statement, CZ expressed the belief that the actual amount of Bitcoin's available supply could be much less than what many people expect.
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According to his estimate, over 20.07 million Bitcoin have been mined as of August 2026 out of the total 21 million supply limit. As such, he noted that this leaves just 4.4% of Bitcoin's maximum supply yet to be mined.
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While about 20.07 million Bitcoin are expected to be available to the market since they have been mined, CZ mentioned that the tokens available to the market could be less than this figure, suggesting that Bitcoin is even more scarce than is often claimed.
Why is Bitcoin scarce?To back his point, CZ further estimated that 10% to 20% of the available Bitcoin supply may be lost, stuck, or permanently unrecoverable due to various factors.
He mentioned that these irrecoverable tokens could include Bitcoin tokens held in wallets whose private keys have been lost or funds that are otherwise inaccessible.
As such, CZ has warned that the number of Bitcoin that can actually be bought, sold, or moved by potential traders could be substantially lower than the total number that has been mined so far.
Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.
Disclosure. PANews may publish sponsored content, partner content, advertisements, affiliate links, event promotions, and market commentary involving Web3 projects, service providers, or financial products. PANews personnel, contributors, or affiliates may hold digital assets or other interests related to covered topics. See our Terms of Service.
People often tell the story of the first Bitcoin whitepaper as if it materialized in a vacuum and then led linearly to mining, smart contracts, tokens, DeFi, and every successive generation of blockchain design. But the intellectual history of these technologies is actually much older and more labyrinthine, complete with twists, turns, and false starts. And instead of a single inventor (or two), the foundational technologies behind blockchains pull on threads left by others.
For instance, answering questions like: How can machines agree when some fail or behave maliciously? How can strangers communicate and coordinate trustlessly? How do the rules of a market affect how people behave within them? Blockchains didn’t create these questions. But they have brought them together, helping propel them forward in new contexts.
This is why we created First Principles, a special series of conversations hosted by Institute for Advanced Study professor and a16z crypto Head of Research Tim Roughgarden. Throughout, Turing Award winners, Nobel laureates, and Gödel Prize winners share the origin stories behind their pioneering work — much of which underpins things we use every day — and explore how work done for one problem later became part of technologies its creators never anticipated.
You can watch all of the conversations here.
Barbara Liskov (2008 Turing Award Winner, MIT) shares her path from programming languages and data abstraction to distributed systems, the development of viewstamped replication and Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance, and the importance of specification and careful reasoning when building systems that have to survive failure.
“It felt to me like we were in a fun house full of these distorting mirrors. You had to really think about things in an odd way to come to grips with this.” — Barbara Liskov
Leslie Lamport (2013 Turing Award Winner, most recently at Microsoft Research) discusses his work on concurrency, logical clocks, Byzantine agreement, state machine replication, and Paxos, and how problems that began as theoretical questions became central to distributed computing.
“I got back a letter from the editor pointing out where the bug in my algorithm was. This had two effects. The first was, it made me realize how tricky concurrency is, and how you really have to be essentially able to prove the correctness of a concurrent algorithm. And the second was, I’m just gonna solve that damn problem.” — Leslie Lamport
Alvin Roth (2012 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, Stanford University) explains how market design moved from economic theory into institutions — including medical matching, school choice, and kidney exchange — and why the rules of a market often determine whether the market can exist at all.
“That was really the beginning of my career as a practical market designer, when I agreed that their hard problems would become my problem.” — Alvin Roth
Paul Milgrom (2020 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, Stanford University) discusses auction theory and the movement between theoretical economics and practical mechanism design — including the growing dialogue between economists and computer scientists.
“Many of the assumptions that we make in economics are arbitrary for convenience, for simplicity. And they’re just wrong.” — Paul Milgrom
Ron Rivest (2002 Turing Award Winner, MIT) revisits the invention of RSA and the early development of public-key cryptography, digital signatures, and hash functions, as well as the evolution of the security assumptions that underpin much of modern digital communication.
“Most of mathematics turns out to be useful somewhere, and cryptography is a great consumer of mathematics.” — Ron Rivest
Shafi Goldwasser (2012 Turing Award Winner, MIT), co-inventor of zero-knowledge proofs, traces the path from early cryptographic puzzles to interactive proofs and zero knowledge, and from there to questions about efficient verification that eventually helped make modern SNARKs possible.
“For me, I need a narrative. There has to be, first of all, a story in your head. The problem is more of a narrative, and now you can attach to it a specific math problem.” — Shafi Goldwasser
Noam Nisan (2012 Gödel Prize Co-Winner, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, also StarkWare) reflects on complexity theory, the sum-check protocol, algorithmic game theory, and the unpredictable path by which theoretical ideas can become part of practical systems decades after they first appear.
“I never thought of this as anything that could be practical … It was highly theoretical, and I was sure it [would] never become useful.” — Noam Nisan
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed by our writers are their own and do not represent the views of U.Today. The financial and market information provided on U.Today is intended for informational purposes only. U.Today is not liable for any financial losses incurred while trading cryptocurrencies. Conduct your own research by contacting financial experts before making any investment decisions. We believe that all content is accurate as of the date of publication, but certain offers mentioned may no longer be available.
Ripple CTO Emeritus David Schwartz recently weighed in on an X conversation, explaining the logic behind Bitcoin hard forks in the process.
An X user had questioned the value of a new PoW fork, citing Bitcoin Cash and the most recent BIP-110 proposal. While forks can address "surface" issues, such as whether a network has too much or too little spam, they still end up inheriting the underlying governance issue, the X user argued.
"My point here is that if you believe that the old chain has been captured, how does creating a new PoW fork help? Yes, it will have the feature you wanted, but at some point in time, if your new chain becomes super popular, it will get captured once again," the X user added.
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Schwartz's perspective on a PoW fork is quite different, saying that it gives participants the ability to choose between competing sets of rules.
The point of the fork is to let everyone get what they want by choosing which side of the fork they want to interact with. If people on the "losing" side come to the "winning" side, it's because they realize that the winning side's rules produce the results they prefer. Why else?
— David 'JoelKatz' Schwartz (@JoelKatz) August 15, 2026 "The point of the fork is to let everyone get what they want by choosing which side of the fork they want to interact with," Schwartz said. "If people on the losing side come to the winning side, it's because they realize that the winning side's rules produce the results they prefer. Why else?" Schwartz asked.
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This implies that if participants strongly disagree with the rules of an existing network, a fork can give them another option. If that alternative eventually becomes more attractive, users can migrate toward it.
Bitcoin soft fork faces setbackLast Saturday, a new minority chain created when BIP-110 supporters split from Bitcoin lasted just two blocks.
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BIP-110, formally the Reduced Data Temporary Softfork, was the brainchild of pseudonymous developer Dathon Ohm with input from Luke Dashjr, creator of the Bitcoin Knots node software. It called for a one-year consensus-level restriction on arbitrary data in Bitcoin transactions. This includes Ordinals inscriptions (Bitcoin's answer to NFTs), BRC-20 and Runes (both fungible token standards), and oversized OP_RETURN.
The proposal contained seven rules capping most outputs at 34 bytes, OP_RETURN at 83 bytes, and data pushes at 256 bytes, plus restrictions on Taproot annexes and control blocks.
Coinbase makes a comprehensive push into AiFi, building financial infrastructure for the AI agent economy.
According to official announcements, Coinbase has announced a full-scale push into the "Agentic Economy", covering three groups: users who utilize AI agents, enterprises that provide services to AI agents, and developers building products and infrastructure for AI agents. Coinbase says it is constructing a comprehensive financial service system for AI agents: AI agents can conduct research, planning, decision-making, and trading on its "Everything Exchange", covering assets including cryptocurrencies, stocks, derivatives, and more. The company is also launching Coinbase Advisor, an AI investment advisor built into the Coinbase app to assist users in making investment decisions. On the enterprise front, Coinbase is introducing payment capabilities for AI agents, allowing businesses to accept USDC payments from AI agents via Coinbase Business, with native integration of the x402 standard—no need to build separate payment processes. Coinbase notes that this solution eliminates credit card-style chargeback risks, idle USDC can earn 3.35% rewards, and enterprises can manage funds, reconcile accounts, and withdraw funds all within the same account. Additionally, Coinbase has launched the CDP x402 SDK, enabling developers to integrate AI agent payment capabilities into APIs or MCPs with just approximately 3 lines of code, without requiring deep expertise in x402 technology. Coinbase adds that as AI agents gain autonomous payment capabilities, they also require a marketplace to discover and purchase services. The x402 is emerging as an open payment standard for machines, enabling agent-to-agent transactions without human intervention; when AI agents need capital, they can turn to Coinbase. The company refers to this entire ecosystem as "AI Finance" (AiFi), stating that the global economy is being restructured around AI agents.
26 minutes ago
Meme token "Niu Lai" on BSC briefly surged past $15 million in market capitalization, with its price rising more than 150 times in 24 hours.
According to GMGN market data, the market capitalization of the Meme coin "Niu Lai" on BNB Chain briefly exceeded $15 million, and is currently trading at $14.2 million, surging more than 150 times in 24 hours. Recently, the summer animated film "Niu Lai" unexpectedly gained widespread attention due to controversies over its visual production. A relative of the director revealed that the film was created entirely by the director and his mother—no production team was hired, and all work was done manually over five years. As of press time, today's box office has reached 852,800 yuan. BlockBeats reminds users that most Meme coins lack practical use cases, feature highly volatile prices, and thus require caution for investment.
26 minutes ago
Analysis: Bitcoin is in the "extreme discount" zone of the Rainbow Chart, with its downward deviation surpassing that of the previous bear market bottom.
CryptoQuant analyst Axel Adler Jr. noted in a post that Bitcoin is currently trading in the lowest range of the Rainbow Chart model — "basically a fire sale price". This represents an extreme discount relative to the cryptocurrency’s long-term price trajectory, and is not merely a measure of how much Bitcoin has declined. The Rainbow Chart model compares Bitcoin’s current price to its long-term trend, so the gap reflects the market’s deviation from historical patterns. The volatility-adjusted Z-Score now stands at -2.293, the lowest reading since 2016 and lower than the -1.979 recorded at the 2022 bear market bottom. This metric accounts for volatility differences across distinct market cycles, meaning the current downward deviation from the model is more severe than that seen at the last bear market’s trough. Bitcoin is now in an extreme discount zone, with the volatility-adjusted Z-Score hitting a 10-year low. This signals significant undervaluation relative to the model, but it does not alone confirm the final market bottom. Extremely low valuations point to a potentially attractive entry range, though a market reversal would need separate confirmation. Note: The Z-Score is a widely used standardized statistical metric that quantifies how far a data point lies from the mean, measured in units of standard deviation.
26 minutes ago
Google will allow users to remove visible watermarks from its AI-generated content.
Google announced that users can now remove visible watermarks from its AI-generated content, including images, videos, and songs. The company clarified that this change does not impact invisible SynthID watermarks or metadata related to the C2PA standard. Josh Woodward, vice president of Google Gemini, stated in a post that this toggle will apply to the Nano Banana, Omni, and Lyria models. He added that the setting to turn off visible watermarks will be available in Gemini and Google’s Video Editor Flow, with support for Search launching soon. The feature will roll out gradually over the coming days; once live, users can access "Settings > Media Watermarks" to enable or disable visible watermarks. Google has also open-sourced a new library named Credentio, designed to help developers embed local verification mechanisms into their own applications.
26 minutes ago
Stepping into the fray! DeFiLlama reported the fraudulent app for months to no avail, and only after testing it themselves and falling victim to theft did Apple finally take it down from its App Store.
DeFiLlama founder 0xngmi posted on social media that for months, he has been working to get Apple’s App Store to take down a fake app impersonating DeFiLlama, repeatedly reporting trademark infringement and unauthorized impersonation of the official app to Apple. The team then loaded a small amount of funds into a test wallet, downloaded the fake application, and as expected, all funds in the wallet were stolen. The incident was reported to Apple, and the app was removed from the store within days. 0xngmi noted that he hopes other cryptocurrency companies will learn from this to avoid wasting time on similar efforts, as his team did.
26 minutes ago
Iran says it has reached an agreement with Oman on the plan for passage through the Strait of Hormuz.
According to CCTV News, on local time August 15, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Baghaei said that despite US obstruction, talks between Iran and Oman are still advancing actively, and the two sides have reached an agreement on a navigation plan for the Strait of Hormuz.
Coinbase makes a comprehensive push into AiFi, building financial infrastructure for the AI agent economy.
According to official announcements, Coinbase has announced a full-scale push into the "Agentic Economy", covering three groups: users who utilize AI agents, enterprises that provide services to AI agents, and developers building products and infrastructure for AI agents. Coinbase says it is constructing a comprehensive financial service system for AI agents: AI agents can conduct research, planning, decision-making, and trading on its "Everything Exchange", covering assets including cryptocurrencies, stocks, derivatives, and more. The company is also launching Coinbase Advisor, an AI investment advisor built into the Coinbase app to assist users in making investment decisions.
On the enterprise front, Coinbase is introducing payment capabilities for AI agents, allowing businesses to accept USDC payments from AI agents via Coinbase Business, with native integration of the x402 standard—no need to build separate payment processes. Coinbase notes that this solution eliminates credit card-style chargeback risks, idle USDC can earn 3.35% rewards, and enterprises can manage funds, reconcile accounts, and withdraw funds all within the same account. Additionally, Coinbase has launched the CDP x402 SDK, enabling developers to integrate AI agent payment capabilities into APIs or MCPs with just approximately 3 lines of code, without requiring deep expertise in x402 technology.
Coinbase adds that as AI agents gain autonomous payment capabilities, they also require a marketplace to discover and purchase services. The x402 is emerging as an open payment standard for machines, enabling agent-to-agent transactions without human intervention; when AI agents need capital, they can turn to Coinbase. The company refers to this entire ecosystem as "AI Finance" (AiFi), stating that the global economy is being restructured around AI agents.
26 minutes ago
Meme token "Niu Lai" on BSC briefly surged past $15 million in market capitalization, with its price rising more than 150 times in 24 hours.
According to GMGN market data, the market capitalization of the Meme coin "Niu Lai" on BNB Chain briefly exceeded $15 million, and is currently trading at $14.2 million, surging more than 150 times in 24 hours. Recently, the summer animated film "Niu Lai" unexpectedly gained widespread attention due to controversies over its visual production. A relative of the director revealed that the film was created entirely by the director and his mother—no production team was hired, and all work was done manually over five years. As of press time, today's box office has reached 852,800 yuan. BlockBeats reminds users that most Meme coins lack practical use cases, feature highly volatile prices, and thus require caution for investment.
26 minutes ago
Analysis: Bitcoin is in the "extreme discount" zone of the Rainbow Chart, with its downward deviation surpassing that of the previous bear market bottom.
CryptoQuant analyst Axel Adler Jr. noted in a post that Bitcoin is currently trading in the lowest range of the Rainbow Chart model — "basically a fire sale price". This represents an extreme discount relative to the cryptocurrency’s long-term price trajectory, and is not merely a measure of how much Bitcoin has declined. The Rainbow Chart model compares Bitcoin’s current price to its long-term trend, so the gap reflects the market’s deviation from historical patterns. The volatility-adjusted Z-Score now stands at -2.293, the lowest reading since 2016 and lower than the -1.979 recorded at the 2022 bear market bottom. This metric accounts for volatility differences across distinct market cycles, meaning the current downward deviation from the model is more severe than that seen at the last bear market’s trough. Bitcoin is now in an extreme discount zone, with the volatility-adjusted Z-Score hitting a 10-year low. This signals significant undervaluation relative to the model, but it does not alone confirm the final market bottom. Extremely low valuations point to a potentially attractive entry range, though a market reversal would need separate confirmation. Note: The Z-Score is a widely used standardized statistical metric that quantifies how far a data point lies from the mean, measured in units of standard deviation.
26 minutes ago
Google will allow users to remove visible watermarks from its AI-generated content.
Google announced that users can now remove visible watermarks from its AI-generated content, including images, videos, and songs. The company clarified that this change does not impact invisible SynthID watermarks or metadata related to the C2PA standard. Josh Woodward, vice president of Google Gemini, stated in a post that this toggle will apply to the Nano Banana, Omni, and Lyria models. He added that the setting to turn off visible watermarks will be available in Gemini and Google’s Video Editor Flow, with support for Search launching soon. The feature will roll out gradually over the coming days; once live, users can access "Settings > Media Watermarks" to enable or disable visible watermarks. Google has also open-sourced a new library named Credentio, designed to help developers embed local verification mechanisms into their own applications.
26 minutes ago
Stepping into the fray! DeFiLlama reported the fraudulent app for months to no avail, and only after testing it themselves and falling victim to theft did Apple finally take it down from its App Store.
DeFiLlama founder 0xngmi posted on social media that for months, he has been working to get Apple’s App Store to take down a fake app impersonating DeFiLlama, repeatedly reporting trademark infringement and unauthorized impersonation of the official app to Apple. The team then loaded a small amount of funds into a test wallet, downloaded the fake application, and as expected, all funds in the wallet were stolen. The incident was reported to Apple, and the app was removed from the store within days. 0xngmi noted that he hopes other cryptocurrency companies will learn from this to avoid wasting time on similar efforts, as his team did.
26 minutes ago
Iran says it has reached an agreement with Oman on the plan for passage through the Strait of Hormuz.
According to CCTV News, on local time August 15, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Baghaei said that despite US obstruction, talks between Iran and Oman are still advancing actively, and the two sides have reached an agreement on a navigation plan for the Strait of Hormuz.
Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.
Disclosure. PANews may publish sponsored content, partner content, advertisements, affiliate links, event promotions, and market commentary involving Web3 projects, service providers, or financial products. PANews personnel, contributors, or affiliates may hold digital assets or other interests related to covered topics. See our Terms of Service.
The Cboe exchange is seeking approval to list the first triple-leveraged Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs in the US. The filing comes on the back of weakening demand for crypto ETFs amid the ongoing price weakness.
The Cboe filing has not driven gains for Bitcoin and Ethereum, with the two trading at $63,000 and $1,879, respectively, at the time of writing.
Cboe Seeks Approval For the First 3X Leveraged BTC and ETH ETFs A filing made with the SEC on August 14 revealed that Cboe is planning to list triple-leveraged ETFs for various assets, including gold and silver. The ETFs will be issued by Volatility Shares.
The exchange is also including Bitcoin and Ethereum in this filing, with that part standing out because these will be the first triple-leveraged crypto ETFs to trade in the US.
Volatility Shares already offers access to 2x Bitcoin and Ethereum Strategy ETFs that the SEC approved in June 2023.
The 2x Bitcoin ETF (BITX) has already amassed $846 million in net assets while the 2x Ether ETF (ETHU) has $723 million in net assets.
Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs Face Weak Demand Data from SoSoValue shows that Bitcoin ETFs recorded outflows of $389 million between August 10 and August 14. Outflows to Ethereum ETFs also reached $2.26 million in outflows during the same period.
Crypto ETF Weekly Flows (Source: SoSoValue) The drop was a stark contrast to the previous week after the coldcard hacking attack fuelled $853 million inflows to BTC ETFs between August 3 and August 7. ETH ETFs also saw inflows of $244 million during the same week.
Still, other altcoin ETFs are recording a surge in inflows, with Solana topping the ranks with $10.26 million inflows in the week starting August 10. XRP and HYPE ETFs also saw $2.25 million and $2.74 million in inflows, respectively.
Bitcoin Price Prediction as Options Data Signals Near Team Fears Are Easing Data from Glassnode shows that Bitcoin’s one-week implied volatility has dropped to 26%.
The on-chain analytics platform also observed that the one-week 25-delta skew has dropped to 5%, suggesting that there are fewer traders hedging against a decline in Bitcoin price.
BTC: 25-Delta Skew (Source: Glassnode) This 25-delta skew also supports a bullish future Bitcoin price outlook because it shows that traders are not expecting an increase in selling pressure
Glassnode also notes that the price of Bitcoin could remain between $60,000 and $70,000 unless there is a breakdown of the support at $60,000 that could increase sell-side pressure.
A recent CoinGape Bitcoin price analysis also observed that BTC is creating a rounded top pattern on the four-hour chart that could push the price to $60,000.
Ethereum Price Prediction as Bull Flag Appears Ethereum has created a bull flag on the one-day chart. This pattern often suggests that a current downtrend is only temporary before the price resumes a previous strong upside move.
The height of this bull flag pattern is 28%. This suggests that Ethereum price could surge by 28% if it closes above the resistance at $1,947.
The MACD line that is positive supports a bullish long-term Ethereum price outlook. However, the MACD line has moved below the signal line to suggest that the bullish momentum is weakening.
ETH Price Chart The RSI reading of 50 also suggests that the momentum remains neutral, and this could force ETH to remain within the parallel channel of the bull flag until the buy-side pressure rises to push it above the resistance at the upper trendline.
Bitcoin hovers near the $63,000 mark as weaker ETF demand and cancelled SEC meeting dampen the crypto market sentiment. The cryptocurrency was trading near the $63,086 mark.
In the past 24 hours, Bitcoin and Ethereum were down 0.7% and 0.3% respectively. Among the major altcoins, BNB, XRP, Solana, Tron, Hyperliquid, Cardano fell upto 1.1%.
The global crypto market capitalisation edged down 0.4% to $2.24 trillion, according to Coingecko.
Crypto Tracker
TOP COINS (₹)
58,350 (0.5%)
179,310 (0.4%)
6,014,312 (0.1%)
96 (0.0%)
96 (0.0%)
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Riya Sehgal Research Analyst Delta Exchange said the crypto markets remain cautious, with Bitcoin hovering near the $63,000 mark as weaker ETF demand and renewed regulatory uncertainty limit risk appetite.
Sehgal further said the cancellation of the SEC’s scheduled crypto-rule meeting removed a potential near-term catalyst, while recent spot Bitcoin ETF outflows indicate that institutional buying momentum has cooled. However, the absence of aggressive downside acceleration is equally important.
In the past week, Bitcoin and Ethereum fell 2.8% and 1.6% respectively. Among the major altcoins, XRP and Cardano were down 2.4% and 9.8% respectively whereas BNB, Solana, Tron, Hyperliquid, Dogecoin rallied upto 2.9%.
Nischal Shetty, Founder, WazirX said Bitcoin remained range-bound near 63K - 65K, with 62.4K-63K providing key support and 64K-65.5K acting as the main resistance zone. Ethereum held around 1,870-1,885, with 1,850-1,870 as support and 1,900-1,925 as immediate resistance.
Shetty further said that institutional demand stayed constructive, with strong ETF inflows, but offsetting selling and subdued momentum kept both BTC and ETH in consolidation.
Also Read | Mutual funds raise IT exposure to 6.6% in July after record low. Is sentiment towards tech improving?
Here is what other analyst sayHarish Vatnani, Head of Trade, ZebPay: Bitcoin and the broader cryptocurrency market continue to trade with subdued momentum, as BTC remains range-bound between $62,000 and $66,000. Uncertainty surrounding global macroeconomic conditions and geopolitical developments has kept traders cautious, limiting fresh participation and resulting in low market volatility.
Ethereum is trading near the $1,885 mark after recovering from recent lows, but it continues to face strong resistance in the $1,950–2,000 zone. Despite repeated rejection near these levels, buyers remain active on dips, indicating that underlying demand is still intact.
(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of The Economic Times)
Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the United States are recording notable outflows, with total holdings shrinking by 917 BTC in recent trading sessions. The value of these outflows stands at approximately $57.63 million, representing a significant shift among institutional investors.
Institutional outflows hit Bitcoin ETFsMajor U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs, including those operated by investment giants such as BlackRock and Fidelity, led the net decrease in Bitcoin assets over the past two days. The cumulative outflow now exceeds the total Bitcoin mined within the same period, signaling a period of increased selling pressure from large institutional holders.
This trend is viewed by market analysts as a potential indicator of caution among big players, as funds reduce their exposure in the current market environment. The selling activity in these ETFs draws attention to the evolving sentiment in institutional circles.
Bitcoin ETFs experienced 917 BTC in net outflows, equivalent to $57.63 million, with BlackRock and Fidelity among the major managers reducing positions.
Bitcoin’s supply on exchanges continues to decline at the same time, possibly reflecting efforts by investors to hold assets in private wallets. The combined effect of ETF redemptions and wider on-chain outflows has led some to anticipate tighter liquidity conditions ahead.
Chainlink sees notable ETF inflowsWhile Bitcoin ETFs have experienced net selling, the trend has shifted in the case of Chainlink, a decentralized oracle network designed to facilitate secure communication between blockchains and external data sources. In recent trading, ETFs acquired 163,280 LINK, equating to $1.47 million in value. This represents growing institutional interest in the altcoin, with some investors considering Chainlink as a diversification play as Bitcoin faces more volatility.
Analysts have pointed out that inflows into Chainlink ETFs may support the network’s position in the broader crypto market, especially as flows in major coins appear subdued.
Mini dictionary: Chainlink is a decentralized oracle platform that connects smart contracts with external real-world data, enabling blockchain applications to securely access information from outside networks.
AssetETF FlowValueBitcoin-917 BTC$57.63 million (outflow)Chainlink+163,280 LINK$1.47 million (inflow)Market outlook and sentimentAs Bitcoin price remains near $62,980, ongoing ETF outflows and shrinking on-exchange supplies create a unique dynamic that may influence price swings in the short term. Observers have noted that institutional moves are occurring as market sentiment holds in the Fear zone, which may contribute to uncertainty among individual traders.
Many investors are closely watching how continued redemptions from Bitcoin ETFs might affect overall liquidity, while the positive trend in Chainlink flows could indicate shifting preferences among funds seeking exposure to alternative digital assets.
Ongoing ETF outflows and tighter supply could directly impact liquidity and price dynamics, leading to heightened volatility.
Looking ahead, market participants are expected to track changes in ETF activity for both Bitcoin and emerging altcoins, assessing their potential impact on broader price action as institutional sentiment evolves.
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.
Bank Leumi, the leading financial institution in Israel, will integrate Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana trading into its Leumi Trade application
Retail customers through Leumi and Pepper mobile banking will gain access beginning early 2027
Galaxy Digital’s GalaxyOne Institutional platform will power the trading framework
Digital asset security will be managed by Galaxy’s custody solution, previously branded as GK8
Leumi will become Israel’s pioneering bank to deliver cryptocurrency trading to everyday customers
In a significant development for Israel’s financial sector, Bank Leumi has entered into a collaboration with Galaxy Digital to bring cryptocurrency trading capabilities to its customer base. The rollout is scheduled for the first quarter of 2027.
LATEST: 🇮🇱 Bank Leumi, Israel’s largest bank, is partnering with Galaxy to let customers trade Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana via its Leumi Trade app starting early 2027. pic.twitter.com/PiHu8aFFuZ
— CoinMarketCap (@CoinMarketCap) August 15, 2026
Both Leumi’s primary customers and those using Pepper, its mobile-first banking subsidiary, will gain the ability to purchase, store, and liquidate Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana. These transactions will occur within a specialized segment of the Leumi Trade mobile application.
The underlying trading technology will be provided by Galaxy Digital’s GalaxyOne Institutional solution. Meanwhile, the safeguarding of digital assets will rely on Galaxy’s custody platform, which operated under the GK8 brand before rebranding.
According to Leumi, the institution provides financial services to millions of clients spanning both consumer and commercial banking sectors. The bank emphasizes that this initiative positions it as the inaugural Israeli banking institution to provide direct digital asset trading capabilities to its clientele.
Rationale Behind the Asset Selection
The selection of these particular digital assets mirrors prevailing institutional appetite. Bitcoin and Ethereum represent the cryptocurrency market’s two dominant assets by total valuation. Solana has experienced increasing adoption among institutional investors.
Galaxy has already established operational infrastructure supporting Solana. The firm operates as a validation provider for investment products connected to the Solana ecosystem.
GalaxyOne Institutional consolidates trading execution, asset custody, staking services, financing solutions, and market analysis into a unified platform. This architecture aims to deliver cryptocurrency exposure to banking clients while maintaining institutional-grade security protocols.
Galaxy’s Strategic Expansion in Traditional Finance
The agreement with Leumi represents part of Galaxy Digital’s comprehensive approach to building relationships with established financial institutions. The company has been actively developing its institutional banking network across various regions.
Galaxy recently broadened its collaboration with BNY to incorporate institutional staking capabilities into BNY’s digital asset infrastructure. This enhancement enables clients to manage custody and staking operations through a unified system.
During July, Galaxy finalized a naming rights agreement with Texas Tech University, establishing itself as the official digital assets and data center partner for the school’s athletics program.
Galaxy Digital commenced public trading on the Nasdaq exchange in May 2025 using the GLXY ticker symbol. The stock closed Friday at $21.38, reflecting a 2% intraday gain while showing approximately 25% decline year-over-year.
The firm reported an $85 million net deficit during the second quarter, attributing the loss to diminished cryptocurrency valuations. Nevertheless, its digital asset operations generated $66 million in adjusted gross earnings, representing a 34% sequential increase.
Mike Novogratz established Galaxy and continues to serve as its chief executive. The organization has maintained its institutional expansion trajectory despite experiencing share price contraction.
The Leumi collaboration expands Galaxy’s portfolio of institutional banking partnerships. Implementation remains on schedule for early 2027, subject to completion of trading and custody system integration.
