Track market-moving stories before they get noisy

Bitcoin could challenge prevailing bearish expectations in August, as BlackRock made a significant move in the cryptocurrency market with a major Bitcoin purchase.

BlackRock’s new Bitcoin positionBlackRock, which ranks among the world’s largest asset managers, recently acquired more than $111 million worth of Bitcoin. The purchase followed a positive trading session for BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF, the largest exchange-traded fund dedicated to the cryptocurrency.

The new allocation comes as onchain data confirms recurring patterns: BlackRock has been alternating between buying and offloading Bitcoin in response to price swings and market sentiment.

BlackRock captured the majority of capital entering the Bitcoin ETF market during this session, as $111.43 million flowed into Bitcoin while total ETF net inflows for the day reached over $170 million.

This trend points to BlackRock’s dominance within the institutional Bitcoin investment landscape. While the firm’s activity is closely tied to price movements, its latest purchase signals growing interest among traditional financial entities.

BlackRock is a global investment company known for its expansive ETF offerings and substantial influence in the financial markets, with assets under management exceeding $10 trillion.

Mini dictionary: Onchain data, refers to analysis and data gathered directly from a blockchain, providing transparent records of asset movement, ownership, and network activity.

ETF inflows signal renewed institutional interestThe broader Bitcoin ETF market recorded a net inflow surpassing $170 million during the most recent session. BlackRock’s purchase accounted for the largest portion of this, reinforcing its leading position among ETF providers such as Fidelity and Grayscale.

ETF ProviderNet Inflow (Latest Session)BlackRock$111.43 millionAll Providers (Total)$170 million+Institutional appetite for Bitcoin appears to be rising, even as the cryptocurrency’s price remains volatile. Analysts are monitoring whether these inflows will drive further price recovery or if the current uptrend is temporary.

August outlook for BitcoinDespite recent buying activity, caution remains regarding Bitcoin’s performance in August. Historically, August has often been a difficult month for the digital asset. Since 2022, Bitcoin has posted consistent losses in August, which has fueled skepticism among investors about the likelihood of a strong rebound this month.

However, Bitcoin started the current month on a stronger note, rising 1.37% as of August 4. Market participants are now watching to see if this early momentum will continue and help Bitcoin achieve a more positive return by the end of August, potentially breaking its recent negative trend for the month.

Expectations for August remain mixed, as Bitcoin is attempting to overcome a historical pattern of poor performance during this period, with the current modest gain raising the possibility of a rare positive August finish.

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.

Digital assets firm Tether has released its second-quarter 2026 financial figures, highlighting steady operational results and strategic adjustments to its reserve portfolio. The company, known for issuing the USDT stablecoin, recorded approximately $1.5 billion in net operating profit for the three months ending June 30, 2026.

This performance was primarily fueled by income generated from its substantial holdings of US Treasury securities and repurchase agreement activities.

According to the attestation prepared by independent accounting firm BDO, Tether’s total assets stood at roughly $187.75 billion at the close of the quarter.

Liabilities totaled about $183.64 billion, the bulk of which related to issued digital tokens.

This left a reserve surplus of approximately $4.11 billion, confirming that assets continued to exceed obligations despite market fluctuations.

Circulating USDT reached about $184.6 billion, representing a modest increase of roughly $446 million from the prior quarter and pushing the token’s share of the overall stablecoin market above 60 percent even as the broader sector experienced contraction.

A notable development involved the expansion of physical gold holdings. Tether acquired an additional 14 tons of bullion during the period, elevating its total gold reserves to more than 146 tons.

These holdings were valued at around $18.8 billion at quarter-end.

The move underscores gold’s growing role within the company’s diversified reserve strategy, which remains heavily weighted toward short-duration, high-quality liquid assets such as US government-backed instruments.

Concurrently, Tether reduced its exposure to secured lending by approximately $2.38 billion, equivalent to a 15 percent decline.CEO Paolo Ardoino emphasized the resilience of the firm’s approach amid volatility in both gold and Bitcoin markets.

He noted that USDT stayed fully backed throughout the quarter, with reserves still surpassing liabilities by $4.11 billion.

Ardoino highlighted the strong contribution from Treasury and repo performance, the continued status as one of the world’s largest purchasers of US Treasuries, the gold additions, and growth in the global user base exceeding 30 million additional participants.

These outcomes, he stated, illustrate the company’s liquidity, discipline, and capacity to navigate market cycles while supporting hundreds of millions of users worldwide.

The attestation also reaffirmed that the majority of reserves are allocated to instruments providing ready liquidity for potential redemptions under varying conditions.

Work continued on a more comprehensive Big Four audit process, alongside broader efforts to develop technology and financial infrastructure.

Bitcoin holdings increased modestly during the quarter as well, though market price movements affected the reported dollar valuations of both gold and Bitcoin positions.

The Q2 results portray a stablecoin issuer maintaining operational strength and actively refining its asset mix.

By prioritizing high-quality liquid assets while selectively increasing exposure to physical gold, Tether aims to balance yield generation with resilience.

The reported profit and reserve buffer provide further evidence of the digital asset firm’s ability to generate returns from traditional fixed-income instruments even as it expands into alternative store-of-value assets. User growth and market-share gains for USDT further signal sustained demand for its products across global markets.

Tyler Williams, the counselor to the Treasury Secretary responsible for steering the department’s digital asset and blockchain policy, has left his position after roughly 17 months on the job. His exit removes one of the most influential voices shaping US crypto regulation at a moment when several major initiatives, from a federal Bitcoin reserve to stablecoin legislation, remain works in progress.

From Galaxy Digital to the Treasury and back out Williams was appointed on February 26, 2025, stepping into a role that put him at the intersection of the Trump administration’s aggressive digital asset agenda and the institutional machinery of the Treasury Department. Before joining the administration, Williams served as Global Head of Policy and Regulatory Counsel at Galaxy Digital, one of the largest crypto-native financial firms in the world.

He also had prior government experience. During Trump’s first term, Williams held the title of Deputy Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions Policy, giving him a rare combination of both public-sector credibility and private-sector crypto fluency.

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During his tenure, Williams was involved in several of the administration’s marquee crypto priorities. He contributed to the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, a piece of legislation aimed at finally drawing clean jurisdictional lines between the SEC and CFTC. He also played a role in discussions around establishing a federal Bitcoin reserve. After approximately 17 months, he was gone. No splashy resignation letter. No successor announcement.

What Williams was working on The stablecoin legislation push has been one of the administration’s clearest policy priorities, aimed at creating a federal framework for stablecoin issuers rather than the patchwork of state-by-state regulation that currently exists. Williams was a central figure in those conversations, helping to coordinate the Treasury’s position with lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, which Williams contributed to, attempts to answer a question the industry has been asking for years: when is a token a security, and when is it a commodity? Williams was also reportedly involved in the planning stages of the federal Bitcoin reserve effort, helping to evaluate the mechanics and risks of such a program.

What crypto investors should watch The most immediate question is who replaces Williams, and how quickly. A fast appointment of someone with comparable expertise would signal that the administration’s crypto priorities remain intact. A prolonged vacancy would suggest the opposite.

Traders should also monitor the legislative calendar. If the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act or stablecoin legislation begins to lose momentum in congressional committees, that could be an indirect consequence of weakened Treasury advocacy. For Bitcoin specifically, the federal reserve concept required sustained internal championing at the Treasury level. Without Williams in the room making the case, the idea could easily lose priority among competing demands for the Secretary’s attention.

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

American Bitcoin (@ABTC), the Trump-backed Bitcoin mining and treasury company listed on Nasdaq, reported its strongest production quarter on record while still posting a significant net loss, underscoring the tension between operational momentum and Bitcoin price headwinds.

Record production, but losses persist The company mined approximately 932 $BTC in Q2 2026, its highest quarterly production on record, up from around 817 Bitcoin mined in Q1 2026. Mining revenue climbed to $67.0 million, an increase of roughly 8% from $62.1 million in the prior quarter. Cost to mine came in at approximately $36,500 per Bitcoin in Q2, essentially flat versus the $36,200 recorded in Q1.

The Miami-based company, co-founded by @EricTrump, reported a net loss of $57.2 million for the quarter, narrowing from the $81.8 million loss recorded in Q1, though the bottom line remained deep in negative territory as a $71.2 million non-cash loss on digital assets absorbed almost the entirety of its operating income. Bitcoin's price fell about 11% during the three months of the quarter, a key factor behind the shortfall.

Treasury grows, leadership changes American Bitcoin closed the quarter holding approximately 8,002 $BTC, up from 7,021 at the end of March, a 14% sequential increase. At prevailing prices, that stockpile is worth roughly $512 million. The 14% increase in a single quarter suggests the company is mining and holding rather than selling into the market to cover operational costs.

American Bitcoin Corp. is a majority-owned subsidiary of Hut 8 Corp. Rather than build data centres of its own, it runs on Hut 8's existing infrastructure, which is intended to give it lower costs than a mining firm starting from scratch.

The quarter also brought a notable leadership change. President Matt Prusak announced his departure to join AI energy firm Giga Energy. @EricTrump, who serves as co-founder and chief strategy officer, has repeatedly stated the goal is to build the preeminent American Bitcoin powerhouse. CEO Mike Ho said the company's view is straightforward: Bitcoin is a growing capital asset, and despite headwinds in Q2, the team delivered its highest quarterly production on record and grew its strategic reserve past 8,000 Bitcoin.

American Bitcoin completed a 1-for-15 reverse stock split last month to maintain its Nasdaq listing after its shares fell below the exchange's minimum bid requirement. The Q2 results also came in well below Wall Street expectations, with analysts having forecast EBITDA of $113.8 million and normalized earnings of $0.30 per share.

Sources:
American Bitcoin Q2 2026 Results, PR Newswire
Trumps' American Bitcoin Posts Record BTC Output, Narrows Q2 Loss, CoinTelegraph
American Bitcoin posts $57.2 million Q2 loss while its Bitcoin stash tops 8,000, Cryptopolitan

For the better part of six years, Michael Saylor’s playbook was simple: buy Bitcoin, then buy more Bitcoin. Strategy, the company formerly known as MicroStrategy, built its entire corporate identity around relentless accumulation. Now it’s selling.

The company offloaded approximately 1,638 BTC for around $104.7 million in late July and early August 2026, boosting its USD cash reserves from $3.2 billion to $4.0 billion.

Where the money is going The Bitcoin sale wasn’t about cashing out for a yacht. About $81 million of the proceeds went toward repurchasing preferred shares and paying dividends on its STRC preferred stock, the financial instrument Strategy created as part of its capital structure expansion.

The company also raised $290.6 million through common stock sales during the same period.

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This wasn’t even the first sale. Back in June 2026, Strategy sold 32 BTC for roughly $2.5 million specifically to cover STRC preferred distributions. That transaction was small enough to fly under the radar. The latest sale, at 50 times the size, is harder to ignore.

After the sale, Strategy still holds 842,138 BTC.

The debt cleanup The Bitcoin sales are only one piece of a broader capital restructuring effort. In May 2026, Strategy repurchased $1.5 billion in 0% convertible senior notes due 2029, paying $1.38 billion for them. The discount, about $120 million, is the kind of trade that makes CFOs look smart at board meetings.

That debt buyback was funded from existing cash reserves, not from new Bitcoin purchases.

The company has also overhauled how it reports its Bitcoin exposure. Instead of simply trumpeting total BTC held, Strategy now provides net exposure figures that account for senior claims like preferred stock and convertible debt.

Why the shift matters Strategy has preferred shareholders expecting dividends. It has convertible debt holders with claims on the balance sheet. It has a $4 billion cash pile that needs to earn its keep. Managing all of this requires selling Bitcoin sometimes, and that’s a fundamentally different posture than “never sell.”

Strategy has been the single largest corporate Bitcoin holder for years, and its buying activity has at times moved markets. If the company shifts from net buyer to occasional seller, that removes a reliable source of demand that traders have come to expect.

For Strategy’s own shareholders, the restructuring creates a different risk profile. The company is less of a pure-play Bitcoin bet and more of a complex financial entity with multiple classes of securities, each with different claims on the underlying assets.

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

A woman walks past an office of Countrywide banking and home loans in Sun City, Arizona, 27 October 2007. Mortgage behemoth Countrywide Financial reported a quarterly loss of over one billion USD 26 October, its first shortfall in 25 years, but projected profits ahead as conditions improve. The largest US mortgage finance group, which has seen its finances ravaged by a persistent housing slump, disclosed a third quarter loss of 1.2 billion USD compared with a profit of 648 million USD for the same period a year ago. AFP PHOTO / Richard A. BROOKS (Photo credit should read RICHARD A. BROOKS/AFP via Getty Images)

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Vishal Garg went to buy a house about twelve years ago and ran into a wall he has been arguing with ever since.

"It was like, wait, I'm gonna have to sell all this stuff. That and pay capital gains on it. And then take the cash. To put it in the house," the Better Home & Finance chief executive said in an interview. "Why can't I just pledge the stuff. Instead of cash?"

Worse, he said, was the sequencing. "What if you don't win the house that you're gonna buy? But the broker's like, yeah, you got to get the money in cash. Otherwise, you know, the seller's not going to take your bid seriously." A buyer sells the assets, books the tax, and only then finds out whether the bid was accepted.

In March, Better and Coinbase announced a fix. Borrowers pledge bitcoin or USDC and get two loans: a conforming first-lien mortgage written to Fannie Mae's guidelines, and a separate privately financed loan that funds the cash down payment, secured by the tokens and by a second lien on the house. The Wall Street Journal reported the same day that Fannie Mae would accept crypto-backed mortgages for the first time. The first loan closed in early June for a couple in their early thirties in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Better says the waitlist ahead of the summer rollout represented roughly $250 million in potential volume, and that 41% of those applicants did not have enough cash for a down payment.

Garg is blunt about where the money to buy these loans comes from. "This is a bank eligible asset. We have Banks lined up to buy these. And fund these. Some of the biggest banks in the country," he said. He expects it to be the route by which "digital assets make their way into the banking system."

What it actually costsThe collateral ratios explain who the product is for. Pledging bitcoin requires 250% of the down payment amount, so a $100,000 down-payment loan needs $250,000 of BTC. USDC, which does not move, requires 125%. There are no margin calls, and a falling bitcoin price does not change the mortgage terms. Liquidation is triggered only by a 60-day payment delinquency, the same trigger as a conforming loan.

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That is a coherent design, and it describes a borrower who is short of cash rather than short of money. Redfin found 12.7% of young recent buyers had used cryptocurrency to help fund a down payment. The National Association of Realtors put the median first-time buyer age at an all-time high of 40 in late 2025, with first-timers a record-low 21% of buyers, a figure the Mortgage Bankers Association disputes using federal loan data. Census figures put homeownership among households under 35 at 35.2% in the second quarter of this year.

Lending against an asset the borrower keeps using is not new. Doug Ricket, CEO and co-founder of PayJoy, said on the On The Margin podcast that a phone can do the job a house does. "Our original invention was we secured the smartphone. Like the smartphone is kind of like the house for a mortgage," he said. PayJoy underwrites thin-file borrowers across Latin America, Africa and South Asia by locking the handset if payments lapse, a model better known as digital collateral.

Ricket draws a hard line on how that collateral gets priced. "One way to lend to the poor is to charge a thousand percent interest rate and have a lot of them default, but you make money on the few stupid people you catch and you squeeze all the money out of them. And that's not the payjoy way," he said. PayJoy's loans carry a one-time fixed finance charge and "0% accruing interest," which is unusual in tech-enabled consumer credit.

Seven senators want it rescindedOn April 30, seven senators wrote to Federal Housing Finance Agency Director William Pulte, naming Better and Coinbase, and asked him to "rescind any approval of this decision and prohibit the Enterprises from taking on crypto-related asset risks." Dick Durbin and Elizabeth Warren signed first, followed by Jeff Merkley, Chris Van Hollen, Richard Blumenthal, Bernie Sanders and Mazie Hirono.

Their objection turns on the same 250% number Better presents as prudence. The structure "requires a homebuyer to pay up to an additional 2.5 times the dollar amount in crypto to qualify for the loan," the senators wrote. "This not only inherently concedes that crypto is a risky asset, but in addition, forces a homebuyer to pay interest on two loans." They estimated the combined financing "could run as much as 1.5 percent higher than the standard Fannie Mae mortgage," and warned that this "incentivizes borrowers to simply walk away from their loan, leaving the American taxpayer to pay the price." They asked for answers by May 30. FHFA has not published a response.

Alys Cohen of the National Consumer Law Center and Corey Frayer of the Consumer Federation of America went further in a June op-ed, writing that the federal government "risks repeating the mistakes that led to the 2008 foreclosure crisis." Their verdict: "That is not an innovation for consumers, it is an invitation for disaster."

The market has not helped the pitch. Bitcoin hit roughly $123,000 last October and traded near $62,800 in February. It has spent July in the low $60,000s, around half its high.

Where Garg wants to take itBitcoin is the opening position. "We do Bitcoin and USDC and there are plans to do all major token assets. So SpaceX stock, Tesla stock coinbase stock better stock. Apple stock, Amazon stock top 50 companies," Garg said. Not memecoins: something with "liquidity" and "institutional following." Ethereum and Solana are next.

He goes further than that. Parents will pledge retirement accounts so their children can buy, he said, an idea that sits alongside the growing market for crypto in retirement accounts. Buyers will photograph a house and let software do the rest. "Have your AI agent apply on better.com. And, you know, be able to say, like, okay, you can bid up to this much for this house," he said. Eventually people will own fractions of homes and move between them. "The only reason that doesn't exist today is the friction."

Underneath all of it is a claim about young people and asset allocation. "As a young person today, you are short inflation. Your short home price appreciation," Garg said.

What a pledged token isThe tokenized-equity leg runs into a question nobody has settled, which is what a token actually entitles its holder to. That question is live right now in the tokenization of everything trade.

Chan Ahn, founder and CEO of Tessera, said on the On The Margin podcast that his firm launched a tokenized SpaceX product in February. He is candid about how it works. "There's no KYC process, and this is intentional, not an oversight," he said. His case for it is access: the private market "was always gate kept to top 0.1 % through paperwork, minimum tickets and geography."

Chris Turner, co-founder of Kula, said on the On The Margin podcast that most tokenized assets are a claim rather than a holding. "It's giving a contractual exposure to the economic upside of that particular asset. But you don't own the asset," he said. What he builds instead is the other thing: "You own the token and the token is the asset, you own the asset. It's different."

A mortgage underwriter pricing collateral needs to know which of those two it is holding.

The other half of the tradeBetter is rewiring its funding at the same time. In February it agreed a partnership with Framework Ventures to deploy up to $500 million through Sky's stablecoin ecosystem, with Framework taking a $45 million stake of roughly 10%. Better expects the shift to cut its cost of capital by more than 100 basis points and has said tokenized funding could put customer rates below 5% while the industry charges above 6%.

It needs the help. Better funded $1.64 billion of loans in the first quarter, up 89% year over year, on $47.5 million of revenue, and still lost about $70 million. Its market capitalization is around $400 million. The company says it has funded more than $110 billion since 2016, and it fired roughly 900 employees on a Zoom call in December 2021, a moment Garg has spent years answering for.

None of which appears to have dented his appetite for the bet. "The risk is we make a product and no one comes, but that's not, that's not what's happened," he said. And on the future generally: "It's not important to think about the future. It's important to make the future happen."

Smaller Bitcoin transfers have reached levels not seen since the collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX amid an ongoing suspected Coldcard hack.

Bitcoin transfers below 1 BTC climbed to their highest daily level since November 2022 on Friday, with 39,600 BTC moved, according to data shared by CryptoQuant head of research Julio Moreno on Saturday.

The figure was just 300 BTC below the 39,900 BTC transferred on Nov. 16, 2022, days after FTX filed for bankruptcy. “The Bitcoin plebs had not moved this amount of BTC in a day since the FTX collapse,” Moreno said, adding that he was encouraged to see users “taking action.”

As the suspected Coldcard hack continues to unfold, the incident has become a broader test for Bitcoin self-custody, reigniting debate over whether users are better protected by controlling their own funds or relying on third-party platforms.

Incident ongoing as Galaxy tracks three attack wavesThe surge in small Bitcoin transfers came as researchers continued to uncover new victims of the suspected Coldcard hack, which first surfaced in late July and appeared to remain active at the time of publication.

Galaxy Research, the research arm of crypto investment company Galaxy Digital, reported Saturday that the latest identified wave drained an additional 207.7 BTC, worth about $13.2 million. The theft brought estimated losses to 1,367 BTC ($88.6 million) across 4,585 addresses.

Alex Thorn, Galaxy Digital’s head of firmwide research, warned in an X post on Sunday that the attack was still ongoing and urged users to move funds from Coldcard-generated addresses immediately if they had not already done so.

Thorn said his team continued to identify new victim and attacker addresses, adding that reports from users had helped researchers and authorities track stolen funds.

Coldcard incident reignites self-custody debateThe suspected Coldcard hack has reignited debate over the risks and benefits of Bitcoin self-custody, a core principle of crypto that allows users to control their funds without relying on third parties.

Nick Neuman, CEO of Bitcoin security company Casa, pushed back against claims that “self-custody is over,” arguing that its distributed nature gave users time to react. He estimated that potentially 10 times more Bitcoin was protected through self-custody than was stolen and identified in the attack so far.

The debate also drew responses from traditional finance supporters. Eric Balchunas, senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg, said that Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) provide a safer and more convenient alternative for many users, pointing to the long operating history of the ETF industry. Others pushed back, saying the Coldcard incident was a failure of one wallet provider rather than a failure of self-custody itself.

Magazine: A quantum roadmap would push Bitcoin much higher: Charles Edwards

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

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Coldcard users are facing a fourth wave of organized theft, and the numbers are no longer rounding errors. Alex Thorn, Head of Research at Galaxy Research, flagged a fresh burst of malicious activity that siphoned approximately 388.9 BTC from 462 victim addresses in just 14 blocks—between 960,778 and 960,792. The attack generated 218 transactions funneling bitcoin into 216 previously unseen destinations. Transaction volume spiked to roughly 45 times the pre-incident baseline, leaving little doubt that this was a deliberate, structured operation.

The warning came via the original report, which also notes that some of the stolen funds have already been traced to second-hop addresses. Similar transactions remain pending in the mempool, indicating the sweep isn’t fully processed. Confirmed on-chain activity shows a signaled opt-in for Replace-by-Fee (RBF), a detail that could offer a narrow escape path for victims who act fast.

The Latest Attack Wave What separates this wave from opportunistic theft is the speed and coordination. The 462 addresses were hit in a tight block window, with the outflow moving to destinations that hadn’t been used before. That pattern—fresh addresses, high-velocity consolidation, and volume far above normal—suggests pre-planned scripts rather than a manual actor. The theft occurred on a weekend, when many users may not have been monitoring transactions. Galaxy Research noted that some funds were already swept to second-hop wallets, complicating track-and-trace efforts and making recovery unlikely without immediate intervention.

The RBF flag offers a lifeline, but only for those who notice the attack while their transactions are still replaceable. Users with pending, unconfirmed outgoing transactions that haven’t been broadcast with a low fee could potentially accelerate a competing transaction to a safe address. It’s a slim window, and it requires technical awareness. For most victims, the funds are already gone.

Pattern of Organized Theft This isn’t the first ride for Coldcard owners. According to Galaxy Research, earlier waves identified three separate attack campaigns targeting Coldcard-generated addresses. Cumulatively, those waves drained 1,367.05 BTC from 4,585 addresses—worth roughly $88.6 million at the time of the thefts. The earlier incidents pushed Coldcard to acknowledge a firmware vulnerability that allowed attackers to derive private keys from seeds created on affected devices.

The hardware manufacturer halted shipments and destroyed all remaining COLDCARD devices with the vulnerable firmware. Satscard, Opendime, and Tapsigner products were unaffected. Coldcard released a patched firmware that protects newly generated seeds, but the fix is not retroactive. Any seed created on the vulnerable firmware remains compromised. The firm’s guidance is blunt: create a new seed on patched firmware and move all funds off old seeds immediately. The fourth wave shows that many users have not yet done so, and attackers are exploiting that inertia systematically.

Coldcard’s Response and User Guidance Coldcard’s decision to halt shipments and destroy inventory was a drastic but necessary step that other hardware vendors rarely take publicly. It signaled that the vulnerability was not a theoretical edge case. Yet the patch rollout exposes the friction inherent in self-custody. Users must generate a new seed phrase, a process that forces a complete change of wallet addresses and often requires updating connected software wallets, multisig setups, and backup procedures. That migration is not trivial, and the ongoing attack waves are punishing anyone who delayed.

For those still holding funds on a seed that originated on the vulnerable firmware, the advice from Galaxy Research is urgent: move funds off Coldcard devices now, use higher-than-usual fees to push transactions through, and exploit RBF if your wallet supports it. The address drain in the fourth wave indicates that attackers are actively monitoring the network for remaining balances.

Broader Implications for Self-Custody The Coldcard episode is more than a hardware bug—it exposes the supply-chain and lifecycle risks baked into self-custody. Users trust firmware that ships from a manufacturer, and even open-source verification processes can be skipped. When a seed generation flaw goes unnoticed for months, the subsequent cleanup is messy and slow. The fact that four distinct attack waves could occur, each months apart, suggests that the attacker is patient and has a reliable method for matching seeds to addresses, likely from a dumped extract of the weak randomness period.

What’s still unclear is whether the attacker holds all of the compromised seed list or only a subset, and whether additional vulnerabilities exist in earlier firmware versions that Coldcard hasn’t disclosed. The sustained nature of the attacks indicates that the list may be large, and the 462 addresses in this wave may be only the latest batch. If the attacker continues sweeping systematically, total losses could climb further. For the broader hardware wallet market, the fallout is a reminder that firmware audits and transparent vulnerability reporting are not optional—they are the core of the product’s security promise.

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

The US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has imposed sanctions on two Iranian companies central to what it describes as an illicit insurance program targeting commercial ships navigating the Strait of Hormuz.

Announced on July 29, 2026, the designations target entities accused of compelling vessels to purchase coverage framed as protection against risks that Iran itself largely generates, while channeling proceeds toward the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

The sanctioned firms are the Persian Gulf Marine Insurance Company (PGMIC) and HormuzSafe Marine Services Authority, also referred to as Hormuz Safe.

According to Treasury officials, these organizations facilitate IRGC-endorsed policies that vessels must obtain to pass through the strategic waterway.

The coverage supposedly addresses threats such as ship seizures, yet authorities emphasize that Iran is primarily responsible for creating those very dangers.

Payments under the arrangement have included Bitcoin and other digital assets, which the regime has used in efforts to circumvent international financial restrictions.

Hormuz Safe, developed under Iran’s Ministry of Economy, markets itself as a provider of digital maritime services encompassing insurance, traffic management, security, and emergency assistance for ships in the strait.

Treasury notes that it accepts cryptocurrency payments specifically to sidestep Western sanctions and generates funds on behalf of the IRGC, thereby enhancing the regime’s influence over regional shipping.

The company was promoted on social media by Babak Morteza Zanjani, an Iranian financier previously sanctioned by the United States.

PGMIC, established by Iran’s primary insurance regulator, the Central Insurance of the Islamic Republic of Iran, acts as a broker for policies approved by the Persian Gulf Strait Authority (PGSA).

The PGSA, an IRGC-linked body, had itself been designated by OFAC in May 2026 for providing material support to the Guard Corps.

Both newly sanctioned companies were targeted under Executive Order 13902 for their activities in Iran’s financial sector.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent highlighted the economic pressures facing Iran, stating that with the economy in freefall and inflation reaching triple digits, the regime is urgently seeking revenue sources.

He underscored that the United States will not permit Iran to leverage global commerce or shipping routes to finance IRGC activities involving terrorism, aggression, or internal repression.

In parallel actions, OFAC designated several companies and identified multiple tankers as blocked property for their roles in transporting Iranian crude oil and petroleum products.

These vessels form part of Iran’s shadow fleet, a network used to sustain oil revenues despite sanctions. Since the start of 2026, more than 100 such vessels have faced US designations.

The latest measures aim to reinforce military interdiction efforts and intensify pressure on Iran’s energy sector, aligning with broader maximum pressure policies.

The designations freeze any US-based assets of the targeted entities and generally prohibit American persons from engaging in transactions with them.

Foreign parties risk secondary sanctions exposure for dealings involving the designated firms or vessels.

Officials frame the insurance initiative as an attempt to replace revenues disrupted by prior operations, allowing Iran to extract funds under the appearance of legitimate maritime services while tightening control over one of the world’s critical energy transit points. These steps form part of ongoing U.S. efforts to disrupt Iran’s methods of generating income through the Strait of Hormuz and its associated logistics networks.

Market news: Anthropic's annual revenue has risen to $80 billion, and is expected to exceed $100 billion by the end of August.

Market analyst Nick Dorsey revealed that Anthropic's annual recurring revenue (ARR) reached $80 billion as of mid-July, and at this pace, it may exceed $100 billion in ARR by the end of August. Nick Dorsey (@Midnight_Captl), a former global sourcing expert at Apple, focuses on investment analysis in the AI and semiconductor sectors.

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The USD/JPY exchange rate fell 170 pips in the short term, breaking below the 156 level.

USD/JPY's decline widened to 170 pips within 15 minutes, marking its first break below the 156 level since May 6, with a daily drop exceeding 1%. Earlier, the United States and Japan said they would not hesitate to further coordinate foreign exchange market interventions.

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CEO of crypto custody firm BitGo issues a 100 BTC challenge to Anthropic, accusing the latter of overhyping AI hacker risks.

Crypto custody firm Bitgo CEO Mike Belshe deposited 100 BTC into a public Bitcoin address on August 1, worth roughly $6.3 million at the time, and invited Anthropic’s Claude models to attempt to transfer funds out of the address. On-chain records show the wallet received the funds on July 31, and no transfers had been made from the balance as of August 2. Anthropic previously disclosed that 3 incidents were found during 141,006 cybersecurity assessment runs, with 6 assessment sessions involving 3 models accidentally interacting with real organizational systems. The models in question include Claude Opus 4.7, Claude Mythos 5, and an unreleased internal research model, stemming from configuration errors by third-party testing partner Irregular that allowed the test environment to connect to the internet. Belshe’s latest challenge targets Bitgo’s institutional custody platform, which uses multi-signature or multi-party computation technology to distribute signing authority across multiple independent keys. As of August 2, Anthropic has not publicly responded to the challenge.

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South Korea's stock index extended its decline to 5%, with Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix seeing their losses widen to 8%.

According to Bitget market data, South Korea’s KOSPI index extended its morning session decline to 5%, with Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix seeing their losses widen to 8%.

12 minutes ago

HIP-3 decentralized exchange platform Paragon has acquired Unitree Technology’s ticker.

According to data from hl.eco, HIP-3 decentralized exchange Paragon acquired tickers UNITREE (from Unitree) and RDDT (from Reddit) in a recent HIP-3 auction for 577.66 HYPE. Currently, HIP-3 decentralized exchange Paragon has 12 stock contract trading pairs, with daily trading volume in the millions of U.S. dollars, and has been expanding continuously through frequent ticker auctions recently.

12 minutes ago

Saylor's Strategy moves 299.84 $BTC ($18.91M), hints at renewed selling after July $216M liquidation

Is Michael Saylor's @Strategy selling $BTC again? A wallet linked to #Strategy moved 299.84 $BTC($18.91M) 9 hours ago. The last time they moved $BTC was between July 1 and July 5. During that week, #Strategy sold 3,588 $BTC($216M).

12 minutes ago

Bitcoin hardware wallet providers Ledger and Trezor have distanced themselves from Coinkite’s Coldcard $38M exploit. 

An unfortunate code flaw within Coldcard’s firmware allowed an attacker to steal 38M worth of BTC or more from the hardware wallet. 

Since Coldcard shares part of the hardware design involving the True Random Number Generator (TRNG) with other providers, investors were worried that other wallets could also be at risk. 

However, Ledger clarified that it uses a slightly more secure design, maintaining that their Bitcoin hardware wallets were “not affected” by Coldcard’s flaw. 

Source: X The firm added that it uses a 256-bit mathematical complexity system (entropy), which makes seed phrases difficult to crack.

On the contrary, Coldcard’s flaw downgraded Coinkite’s system from a 128-bit to a guessable 40-bit system, which could easily be cracked using brute force. 

Trezor, another Bitcoin hardware provider, also assured its users that they should not be alarmed about the Coldcard incident. 

Trezor users: your funds are safe. The recent Coldcard issue is limited to their own custom firmware and how some of their devices generated randomness. Trezor does not share that code.

BTC dumps 3% to 2-week low after Coldcard exploit Despite the assurance, the Coldcard exploit sparked broader fear about safety on hardware wallets and self-custody. 

According to TaprootWizards’ Udi Wertheimer, self-custody is now “worryingly unrealistic,” warning that AI models with cybersecurity attack capabilities will intensify the hacks. 

For his part, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said the best way to improve physical security is by “air-gapping keys,” citing his firm’s operational standard for crypto ETF custody. 

Source: X As the community discussed Bitcoin self-custody threats, BTC’s sentiment dropped to a four-month low. According to Santiment data, the soured sentiment mirrored the market caution seen as the West Asia crisis intensified in April.  

As a result, Bitcoin [BTC] price dropped sharply by nearly 3%, tagging a 2-week low of $62.4K. But the crypto asset slightly recovered back above $63K as of writing. 

Source: Santiment  Others projected that the overwhelming effort to handle self-custody amid the ongoing risks would force investors to opt for U.S. Spot ETFs. 

However, the ETF demand was also impacted by the weak sentiment on Friday. The products recorded a daily net outflow of $265. It remains to be seen whether the spot BTC ETFs will attract new investors worried by self-custody risks and upcoming quantum attack vectors. 

Final Summary Ledger and Trezor said they were “not affected” by the Coldcard flaw as they operate different systems for their hardware wallets.  Coinbase CEO said “air-gapping keys” can help reduce some threats.

The SEC just hit pause on one of the most anticipated Bitcoin derivatives products of the year, and the reason has less to do with Bitcoin itself and more to do with a very old-fashioned regulatory turf war.

Nasdaq PHLX’s proposed cash-settled Bitcoin index options, known as QBTC, have been frozen by the full SEC commission following a jurisdictional challenge from the CME Group. The suspension, effective around July 31, opens a public comment window running through August 24. In plain English: two of the biggest names in traditional finance are fighting over who gets to be the referee for Bitcoin derivatives.

What happened and why it matters Here’s the backstory. The SEC granted Nasdaq conditional approval for the QBTC options back in May 2026 on an expedited basis. The product was designed to track the Nasdaq Bitcoin Index, which divides the CME CF Bitcoin Real Time Index by 100. That same benchmark underpins CME’s own Bitcoin futures and options contracts.

Then CME filed a jurisdictional challenge on or around June 11. The core argument is straightforward: Bitcoin is a commodity, not a security. If that’s the case, cash-settled options based on a Bitcoin index should fall under the exclusive purview of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, not the SEC.

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The SEC’s conditional approval in May required CFTC exemptions before the product could actually launch. CME’s position is that those exemptions can’t simply shuffle regulatory authority from one agency to another.

Now the full SEC commission is reviewing the matter, effectively putting Nasdaq’s product on ice while the adults figure out who actually has jurisdiction.

The jurisdictional chess match The CFTC has long treated Bitcoin as a commodity. CME already operates regulated Bitcoin futures and options under that framework, making it the incumbent player in the institutional Bitcoin derivatives space. From CME’s perspective, Nasdaq is trying to offer a competing product through the wrong regulatory door.

Nasdaq, on the other hand, went through the SEC’s approval process and got a conditional green light. The exchange likely structured its product to fit within securities regulations specifically to tap into its existing infrastructure and customer base on Nasdaq PHLX, its options exchange.

The QBTC options use the exact same underlying benchmark, the CME CF Bitcoin Real Time Index, that powers CME’s own products. CME is essentially saying: you’re using our index to build a product that belongs in our regulatory sandbox, not yours.

What this means for investors For traders who were gearing up to access Bitcoin options through Nasdaq’s platform, the immediate impact is delay. The review period runs through at least August 24, and there’s no guarantee the SEC will simply rubber-stamp the original approval once the comment period closes.

Two scenarios are now on the table. Nasdaq could be forced to register the product with the CFTC instead, which would mean navigating an entirely different regulatory framework and likely pushing back the launch timeline significantly. Alternatively, Nasdaq could restructure QBTC to fit more cleanly within SEC jurisdiction, though how exactly that would work remains unclear when the underlying asset is widely considered a commodity.

The public comment period closing on August 24 is the next milestone to monitor. How the SEC responds to CME’s challenge, and whether the CFTC weighs in publicly, will shape the regulatory architecture for Bitcoin derivatives for years to come. For now, Nasdaq’s Bitcoin options are stuck in regulatory limbo, and CME is making sure everyone knows it put them there.

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

Coldcard Bitcoin loss estimate rises to $70M after Galaxy analysisLatest NewsPublishedAug 1, 2026

Galaxy Research identified 1,196 addresses that lost 1,082.65 Bitcoin in a 41-minute window, expanding the estimated scope of the Coldcard wallet incident.

Galaxy Research, the research arm of crypto investment company Galaxy Digital, identified 1,196 addresses linked to the Coldcard wallet incident that lost 1,082.65 Bitcoin, worth about $70.2 million at the time of the transactions.

Galaxy Research traced the Bitcoin movements between 1:10 AM and 1:51 AM UTC on July 30 across blocks 960,183 to 960,191, about 30 hours before Coldcard published its first security advisory, according to an X post on Friday.

Earlier preliminary analysis of the Coldcard incident by AnchorWatch CEO and co-founder Rob Hamilton estimated that 594.48 Bitcoin, worth around $38 million, moved across 500 transactions within a three-block window.

Galaxy Research later said the identified transactions shared a pattern, including identical 30 satoshis per virtual byte fees and no change outputs. The company said the initial attack activity is identifiable on-chain through this pattern, but noted that future attacks against Coldcard-generated addresses may not follow the same fingerprint.

Coinkite co-founder Rodolfo Novak said in an X post on Friday that the company takes responsibility for the firmware bug and is working to determine the full scope of the issue.

Novak said Coinkite released a hotfix to remove the software fallback path, but warned that the update does not protect seeds generated on vulnerable firmware. He advised users who generated seeds on vulnerable firmware to move their funds to a new seed.

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

https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2025/12/04/bitcoin-has-plunged-strategy-inc-is-an-early-victim

Strategy Inc., led by Michael Saylor, has announced a substantial increase in its Bitcoin holdings and a significant rise in STRC issuance this year. The company reported purchasing 48 times more Bitcoin than it has sold, while issuing 300 times more STRC than it has repurchased. This activity comes as Strategy continues its approach of managing liquidity through a combination of stock sales, preferred-share issuance, and selective Bitcoin sales.

Strategy’s recent disclosures indicate a relative slowdown in Bitcoin sales compared to purchases, suggesting a focus on accumulating the cryptocurrency. The company held approximately 843,775 BTC by early July and had repurchased 288,930 STRC shares, maintaining a strong cash reserve. The firm’s capital allocation approach appears to prioritize Bitcoin accumulation and STRC issuance to support its financial strategies.

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Market participants appear to interpret these moves as potentially supportive of STRC price increases, although recent market odds for STRC reaching $100 by December 31 have slipped slightly, now priced at 32% YES, a decrease from previous levels. This reflects uncertainty about whether the company’s aggressive Bitcoin acquisition strategy will translate into the anticipated market outcomes for STRC.

Key Takeaways Strategy Inc.’s Bitcoin purchases appear to exceed its sales significantly, indicating an accumulation-focused approach. The substantial issuance of STRC suggests a strategic use of equity to manage liquidity and support financial operations. Market pricing suggests participants are evaluating the impact of these actions on STRC’s potential to reach $100 by year-end. What to Watch Watch for any future announcements from Strategy Inc. regarding further Bitcoin acquisitions or changes in STRC issuance strategies. Any significant increase in Bitcoin purchases or strategic shifts could influence market perceptions and pricing of STRC. Additionally, updates on the company’s financial performance and strategic direction under Michael Saylor’s leadership may impact market expectations for STRC’s potential price movements.

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Term Structure

Contract Odds Δ since publish Volume 24h December 31 32% — — View market → September 30 15% — — View market →

Bitget, the exchange group that claims more than 125 million registered users, is giving its customer base direct access to on-chain yield without requiring them to leave its platform. The move comes through a partnership with payments network Morph, lending protocol Morpho, and risk management firm Gauntlet.

How the integration works Morph, a payments network purpose-built for digital asset transactions, has announced the collaboration with on-chain credit protocol Morpho and yield optimization firm Gauntlet. The integration allows Bitget customers to deposit USDC and Bitcoin directly through their existing accounts to access curated yield strategies powered by Morpho and Gauntlet's Aera vaults on Morph's infrastructure.

Users will be able to earn approximately 18% annual percentage yield on USDC deposits and 3% APY on bgBTC, Bitget's wrapped Bitcoin product, without surrendering custody or navigating external decentralized finance protocols. The bgBTC yield strategy launched on Bitget Exchange on July 31, while the USDC yield strategy will become available on the self-custodial Bitget Wallet starting August 3.

The infrastructure behind the yield Morpho is a decentralized lending protocol built around the principle that lending infrastructure and lending strategy belong on different layers. Gauntlet sits in the strategy layer, acting as what the industry calls a vault curator. Using Morpho Vaults, Gauntlet deploys and curates institutional-grade yield strategies through the Morpho Curator App. With vaults deployed, Gauntlet focuses on curating risk-reward to offer the best risk-adjusted returns for vault suppliers.

The firm launched its first Morpho vaults in 2024 and by early 2026 had grown to more than 30 vaults with cumulative supply over $500 million and over $2 billion in total vault TVL across Morpho, Drift, and Kamino. All underlying complexity is abstracted through Morph's infrastructure, enabling users to maintain their Bitcoin positions while participating in yield-generating activities.

The partnership is part of a broader trend of centralised exchanges embedding DeFi yield directly into their products. The collaboration with Morpho reflects Bitget's broader UEX vision, in which users can access crypto-native and traditional financial opportunities through a single intelligent trading and asset management platform.

Sources:
Metaverse Post: Morph, Morpho and Gauntlet Partner to Deliver Institutional On-Chain Yield to Bitget's 125M Users
Morpho: Gauntlet on Morpho Vault Curation
Bitget Blog: Bitget Collaborates with Morpho and Arbitrum on On-Chain Earn Products

In brief Coinkite says a build error meant seeds on its Coldcard hardware wallets were drawn from a software fallback instead of the hardware generator. It believes an attacker used AI on its open-source code, and says its own AI review weeks earlier found nothing. Every current model is affected to some degree, and updating the firmware does not repair a seed already created. Coinkite believes an attacker used AI to find a flaw that has cost owners of its Coldcard hardware wallets tens of millions of dollars in Bitcoin, and says its own AI review of the same code weeks earlier turned up nothing. 

The hardware wallet manufacturer published an advisory for its Mk3 and a technical breakdown on Thursday, after learning that seeds generated by its devices were far more guessable than intended.

COLDCARD Mk3 Security Advisory

If you generated a seed on a Mk3 after firmware 4.0.1, your funds may be at risk.

Mk4, Q and Mk5 are not affected based on our early analysis.

Read the advisory and migrate carefully:https://t.co/3vgPHOjMS7

— COLDCARD (@COLDCARDwallet) July 30, 2026

The losses to the flaw, which was exploited early Friday, are estimated at 594 BTC, around $38 million. Funds were drained from roughly 500 wallets inside 25 minutes, with 562 BTC since consolidated into a single address.

Coinkite said it has to assume "someone used AI to review previous versions of our firmware" in order to uncover the flaw. The firm said it had run one of the best available models over its own code a few weeks earlier, and the model "did not find this bug or anything serious." Attackers and defenders have the same tools, it wrote, but this time "it did not help us, and only helped the bad guys."

What went wrongColdcard's firmware calls a function to fetch randomness, and two implementations of it sat in the codebase with identical signatures: the hardware generator Coinkite wrote, and a software fallback inherited from MicroPython. A preprocessor guard checked only whether a setting was defined, without testing its value, so the build completed against the fallback without complaint. Seed generation had been drawing on it since a March 2021 migration.

Every current model is affected to some degree. Coinkite estimates the effective search space for an Mk3 seed at about 40 bits, against the 128 a seed is meant to have. Extra entropy from the secure elements on the Mk4, Q and Mk5 lifts theirs to roughly 72 bits, which the company says materially improves the position without reaching the target. Tapsigner, Opendime and Satscard use different code and are unaffected.

What owners must doCoinkite has shipped an emergency hotfix, version 5.6.0 for the Mk4 and Mk5 and 1.5.0Q for the Q. Updating does not repair a seed already created on affected firmware. Owners need a new seed generated on patched hardware, and the company recommends a strong BIP-39 passphrase, at least 99 dice rolls, or both. Mk3 owners, whose model is out of support, are pointed to a separate migration path.

1/ Earlier today, our Bitcoin engineering and security teams at Block began investigating reports of non-Bitkey wallets being drained. To proactively protect our customers, we began investigating immediately. Here’s what we found 🧵

— Max Guise (@max_guise) July 31, 2026

A seed created on an affected Coldcard stays weak after being restored to another brand's device, a point rival hardware wallet manufacturer Trezor made while telling its own users their funds are safe. Block, which published an independent analysis on Friday, said none of its products are affected, and its hardware lead Max Guise urged anyone exposed to move funds as soon as they safely can.

Daily Debrief NewsletterStart every day with the top news stories right now, plus original features, a podcast, videos and more.

Block has urged Bitcoin holders using Coldcard hardware wallets to immediately transfer their funds following the public disclosure of two major vulnerabilities impacting several Coldcard models. The call to action came after security teams at Block, a US-based technology and financial services company led by Jack Dorsey, received reports of Bitcoin thefts from wallets not affiliated with its own Bitkey product.

Critical vulnerabilities in Coldcard devicesBlock’s investigation identified severe security flaws in Coldcard Mk2, Mk3, Mk4, Q, and Mk5 models, hardware wallets produced by Coinkite. While Bitkey and other Block products remain unaffected, the vulnerabilities expose users of affected devices to significant risk, particularly those leveraging single-signature wallets.

Engineers explained that an initial attack wave exploited these flaws over a period of approximately one hour. Despite this brief window, researchers cautioned that the campaign may still be ongoing, with additional affected users potentially emerging.

The flaws reportedly impact both wallets protected with weak 25th-word passphrases and select multisignature configurations.

Block noted that single-signature wallets were the primary initial targets, but devices using weak passphrases or certain multisig arrangements could also be vulnerable to exploitation.

Technical details of wallet vulnerabilitiesThe first vulnerability is present in the Mk2 and Mk3 firmware. A coding mistake led to wallet creation processes that depended on predictable rather than sufficiently random hardware-generated values, undermining the security assumptions for generating private keys on these models.

Later models—Mk4, Q, and Mk5—were designed to strengthen entropy input during the device boot sequence using secure-element sources. However, the implementation reduced additional randomness to just 32 bits, leaving those wallets vulnerable as well.

Security experts warned that importing a seed created with affected firmware into another wallet does not eliminate the core risk, since the compromised seed remains inherently unsafe.

Mini dictionary: Entropy, in cryptography, refers to the measure of randomness collected by a system, which is critical for generating secure cryptographic keys. Insufficient entropy can make keys predictable and easier for attackers to compromise.

Response from Block and CoinkiteBlock stated that it shared the findings privately with Coinkite prior to the public announcement, aiming to give the manufacturer time to assess and manage the impact on Coldcard users.

Max Guise, a security engineer at Block, recommended rapid action from affected users. Writing on X, Guise urged anyone with potentially exposed wallets to move their funds as soon as it was safe to do so.

Max Guise emphasized the urgency, advising users to migrate their Bitcoin off vulnerable devices at the earliest safe opportunity.

Clay Garrett, another security engineer, highlighted that further investigation revealed 695 previous transactions displaying the same on-chain signature as the initial exploit, representing an additional loss of 488.11 BTC.

Block’s preliminary review suggests up to 1,082.59 BTC may have been stolen in total using these vulnerabilities.

Affected Device ModelsFlaw TypeEstimated Impact (BTC)Coldcard Mk2, Mk3Predictable wallet generationInitial exploitColdcard Mk4, Q, Mk5Weak entropy on boot (32 bits)Additional 488.11 BTCAll affected devicesCombined campaigns1,082.59 BTCDisclaimer: 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.

Bhutan’s Gelephu Mindfulness City appointed Canadian digital-asset manager 3iQ on July 30 to manage a dedicated mandate backed by an undisclosed portion of its Bitcoin treasury. 

Summary

3iQ will manage an undisclosed portion of Gelephu Mindfulness City’s Bitcoin treasury under the mandate. 10,000 BTC were pledged in December 2025 to support Gelephu’s long-term development and economic plans. 3iQ plans a long-term local presence, talent investment and knowledge transfer alongside treasury management operations. The agreement advances a national pledge to allocate up to 10,000 BTC to the special administrative region’s long-term development.

The parties said 3iQ will also establish a long-term presence in Gelephu, invest in Bhutanese talent and transfer investment-management knowledge. They did not disclose how much Bitcoin entered the mandate or when active management would begin.

3iQ mandate leaves key commercial terms undisclosed The company release provides no mandate value, management fee, custody provider or investment benchmark. It also does not say whether 3iQ may lend Bitcoin, use derivatives, post collateral or pursue yield strategies. Those omissions prevent an independent assessment of the mandate’s risk limits or expected returns.

3iQ chief executive Pascal St-Jean said the firm would put Bhutan’s capital to work “responsibly, transparently and for the long term.” That statement describes the company’s intended approach, not a verified performance outcome. GMC board director Jigdrel Singay called 3iQ a founding institutional partner for the city’s planned fund ecosystem.

The agreement connects GMC with Coincheck Group, whose shares trade on Nasdaq. Coincheck disclosed that it completed the acquisition of a 99.8% beneficial interest in 3iQ on February 28. St-Jean became Coincheck Group’s chief executive on April 1 while retaining his role at 3iQ.

Bhutan’s Bitcoin pledge enters its deployment phase Bhutan announced in December 2025 that up to 10,000 BTC from national holdings would support Gelephu’s development. GMC says the reserve was built by converting surplus hydroelectric power into Bitcoin and is intended to create jobs, develop technical skills and strengthen long-term financial resilience.

The official pledge says the Bitcoin is being put to work for national development rather than held for short-term speculation. The 3iQ appointment is the clearest disclosed step so far toward outside professional management, although the amount assigned to the firm remains unknown.

However, Bhutan has also explored collateralization, treasury management and risk-managed yield as possible tools for the broader pledge. GMC rejected claims that earlier transfers from Bhutan-linked wallets represented sales from Bitcoin committed to the city’s strategic reserves.

Gelephu’s rules require clarity on 3iQ’s local role Gelephu’s Financial Services Office regulates traditional finance and virtual-asset activity inside the special administrative region. Its rules require firms carrying out regulated services, including asset management, to obtain a financial services licence before beginning local operations.

The regulator’s public directory did not list an entity named 3iQ on July 31. That absence does not prove that the mandate requires a separate GMC licence or that no application is pending. The partnership announcement did not identify a licensed local entity or explain the regulatory structure under which 3iQ will operate.

The directory currently includes seven approved firms, with 8020 Finance authorized to manage assets from July 23. GMC has also introduced an accelerated pathway for firms already supervised in recognized foreign financial centers, but local regulators retain responsibility for final approval.

Further milestones will define the treasury strategy 3iQ and GMC said this agreement is the first of several milestones they plan to announce over the coming months. Expected steps include building a local team, establishing operations and developing an institutional fund ecosystem, but the parties provided no formal timetable.

Future disclosures will need to show the Bitcoin amount under management, custody controls, permitted trading strategies and reporting standards. Any use of leverage, lending or collateral would also require clear risk limits because losses or counterparty failures could affect assets committed to national development.

Until those details are released, the agreement confirms a manager and a strategic direction rather than a fully disclosed investment program. Its progress will be measured by regulatory approvals, operational launches and transparent reporting on how Bhutan’s Bitcoin supports Gelephu’s development.

Strategy reported an $8.33 billion second-quarter operating loss after Bitcoin’s 27% decline this year drove a sharp reduction in the value of its digital asset portfolio.

Summary

Strategy recorded an $8.32 billion unrealized digital asset loss during the second quarter. Its 843,775 BTC were worth $54.77 billion, below their $63.69 billion acquisition cost. The company posted an $8.22 billion net loss, equal to $24.45 per diluted share. A $3.75 billion dollar reserve provides 2.1 years of preferred dividend coverage under Strategy’s policy. Strategy’s Bitcoin decline drives $8.33B loss Bitcoin traded near $64,700 following Strategy’s earnings announcement, down from approximately $88,400 at the end of 2025. That decline left the company’s holdings valued below their aggregate purchase cost.

Strategy recorded an $8.32 billion unrealized loss on digital assets during the quarter, contributing to an operating loss of $8.33 billion. The results reversed the $14.05 billion unrealized gain recorded in the same quarter a year earlier.

The company reported a net loss of $8.22 billion, or $24.45 per diluted common share. Strategy posted net income of $10.02 billion, or $32.60 per share, during the comparable period last year.

Strategy shares were mostly unchanged in after-hours trading following the earnings release, suggesting investors had largely expected Bitcoin’s decline to weigh on the results.

Bitcoin holdings fall below Strategy’s acquisition cost Strategy held 843,775 BTC as of July 26, an increase of 25% since the start of the year. The position had an original cost of $63.69 billion, including fees and expenses, and a market value of $54.77 billion.

Its average purchase price stood at approximately $75,476 per Bitcoin. With BTC trading near $64,700 after the report, the company’s position was about $10,776 underwater per coin based on its average acquisition cost.

The gap placed the total portfolio roughly $8.92 billion below its original cost. However, the reported quarterly loss was largely unrealized, meaning it reflected changes in Bitcoin’s market value rather than losses from selling the full position.

As crypto.news reported earlier, Strategy made no Bitcoin purchases between July 20 and July 26. Its total holdings remained unchanged at 843,775 BTC during that period.

The company has nevertheless sold approximately $218.4 million in Bitcoin this year to help fund preferred stock dividends. Those sales remain small relative to its overall digital asset reserve but show that Strategy is using part of the portfolio to meet financing obligations.

Strategy raises cash while reducing convertible debt Strategy’s core software business generated quarterly revenue of $122.4 million, up 6.9% from $114.5 million a year earlier. Gross profit reached $81.6 million, representing a margin of 66.6%.

The company raised $17.06 billion through its capital markets programs during the year and reported a Bitcoin yield of 4.5%. That internal metric measures the change in Bitcoin held per assumed diluted share and does not represent a conventional investment yield.

Strategy also cut its convertible debt by 18% to $6.71 billion after repurchasing $1.5 billion of notes at a discount. The move reduced part of the company’s debt burden as lower Bitcoin prices placed pressure on its balance sheet.

Its U.S. dollar reserve rose by $525 million to $3.75 billion. Strategy said the reserve provides 2.1 years of coverage for preferred stock dividends under its current policy, although the calculation does not guarantee payments under every market condition.

Separate $1 billion repurchase programs have also been established for Strategy’s common shares and digital credit securities. The programs give the company the option to buy back securities but do not require it to use the full authorized amounts.

What the results mean for US investors Strategy remains one of the largest publicly traded corporate Bitcoin holders, giving U.S. investors indirect exposure to BTC through its securities. Its shares can respond to Bitcoin prices as well as debt costs, equity issuance, preferred dividends and changes in the company’s capital structure.

The second-quarter loss shows how Bitcoin volatility can produce large swings in reported earnings. Strategy moved from a $14.05 billion unrealized digital asset gain a year earlier to an $8.32 billion unrealized loss this quarter.

Its increased cash reserve and lower convertible debt provide additional financial flexibility, but Bitcoin remains below the company’s average purchase price. Further declines could deepen unrealized losses, while a recovery above $75,476 would move the portfolio back above its aggregate acquisition cost.

Arqitech has completed the first Canton Token Standard V2 atomic swaps on the @CantonNetwork MainNet, marking a significant step in bridgeless cross-chain settlement for institutions. The transactions allow institutions to exchange Canton Coin (CC) directly on-chain for Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and TRON assets in a secure, all-or-nothing manner, without handing control of assets to any middleman and without using bridges or wrapped tokens.

What the V2 Standard Changes Arqitech collaborated with Digital Asset on the Canton Token Standard CIP-0112, now known as V2, which was approved by the Canton Foundation (@CantonFdn) in June 2026. The standard introduces committed allocations, an irrevocable lock until a defined settlement deadline, giving the Canton leg of a cross-chain HTLC the same timelock guarantees institutions expect from native chain settlement. The standard now underpins advanced institutional uses such as trustless atomic swaps and regulated real-world asset settlement.

Arqitech's Atomic Swap Protocol is built so that every participant signs their own transactions, whether through enterprise key-management systems or their own private nodes. Validator nodes only prepare and submit instructions that have already been signed, keeping full custody with participants at every step.

Institutional Counterparties Already Active Earlier live swaps on Canton MainNet took place between Arqitech, MPCH, Pixelplex, and sFOX, with each institution exchanging Canton Coin for USDC. Every party retained full control of its private keys within its own wallet, demonstrating that regulated institutions can complete secure, atomic cross-chain transactions while maintaining custody of their assets.

Arqitech's deployment is live on Canton MainNet, and the atomic swap capability is set to open to customers in the coming weeks. Brian Wasserman, CEO of Arqitech, said: "Our Atomic Swap Protocol delivers native on-chain swap interoperability, liquidity and settlement rails, while meeting the same custody, audit, and risk standards institutions require."

The development adds to a broader build-out on Canton. Arqitech provides banks, asset managers, hedge funds, and prime brokers with direct API access to trustless swaps, DEX aggregation across 32-plus chains and 20-plus DEXs, privacy-enabled settlement on Canton Network, and regulated real-world asset pathways, all while clients retain custody.

Sources:
Arqitech Deploys Canton Token Standard V2 in its Atomic Swap Protocol (GlobeNewswire, July 28, 2026)
Institutional Execution of Full Featured HTLC Multi-Chain Swaps with Canton (GlobeNewswire, July 23, 2026)

Strategy Inc. is sitting on 843,775 Bitcoin.

The company formerly known as MicroStrategy will release its Q2 2026 financial results today, July 30, after market hours, followed by a live earnings call at 5:00 p.m. ET. As of July 6, the firm’s Bitcoin stash represents roughly 4.02% of the total Bitcoin supply.

But here’s the thing. Strategy hasn’t been buying lately. And it actually sold some coins.

The numbers behind the narrative At the end of Q1 2026, recorded as of May 3, Strategy held 818,334 BTC. The current figure of 843,775 BTC reflects a net increase of roughly 25,441 coins quarter-over-quarter.

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The company’s average acquisition cost sits between $75,482 and $75,537 per Bitcoin.

Year-to-date BTC yield was reported at 9.4% in Q1 2026. That metric, which Strategy uses to measure the growth in Bitcoin per diluted share, has become the company’s preferred scoreboard for telling shareholders the treasury strategy is working.

Executive chairman Michael Saylor confirmed the July 6 holdings figure himself, along with $2.55 billion in USD reserves.

But the quarter wasn’t pure accumulation. The company sold 3,588 BTC in early July, trimming from a previous high.

The purchasing pause Strategy has not made new Bitcoin purchases in recent weeks. The company has $2.55 billion in cash and a position representing 4.02% of total Bitcoin supply. At that scale, every purchase moves the market against you.

Why this matters beyond one earnings call Strategy’s influence on the Bitcoin market extends well beyond its quarterly filings. Controlling 4.02% of total supply gives the company an outsized role in price discovery and market psychology.

The company essentially pioneered the corporate Bitcoin treasury model since 2020, when it began converting corporate resources into digital assets.

Investors should watch for three things on the call: updated BTC yield targets for the full year, any forward guidance on acquisition plans, and how Saylor frames the July sale.

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

Banco Santander, Spain’s largest bank, has disclosed in official regulatory filings that it holds a position of approximately $4.3 million in spot Bitcoin ETFs traded in the US. While this amount isn’t enormous in absolute terms, given the bank’s management of over $1 trillion in assets, it reflects a trend among traditional financial institutions to build Bitcoin exposure through regulated channels.

Santander Takes a New Step in its Cryptocurrency Strategy The bank scored approximately 35% in the 2026 Bitcoin Bank Adoption Index, placing it among the institutions researchers categorized as “mid-level.” This score puts Santander on par with banks like Société Générale, but behind crypto-focused firms like Fidelity. Nevertheless, in an environment where many large banks are still hesitant about digital assets, Santander’s position stands out as a remarkable example.

Santander’s interest in crypto is not new. CEO Ana Botín has been making public statements about Bitcoin products since 2021. The bank has been developing crypto custody and digital asset services across Europe for years. Its digital subsidiary, Openbank, began offering crypto trading services to clients in Germany in September 2025; the next step is to expand this service to Spain.

Rising Institutional Crypto Adoption in Europe Santander’s investment in US spot Bitcoin ETFs comes at a time when institutional crypto adoption is accelerating in Europe. The bank is actively involved in crypto custody and digital asset initiatives across the continent. With new regulations like MiCA becoming clearer, Santander appears to be aiming to strengthen its position in this area.

Whether the bank’s mid-level integration score reflects a cautious approach or structural limitations is being watched by the industry. Banks with higher integration scores may have an advantage in attracting wealthy clients interested in crypto.

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Bitget Wallet will launch Assetback on Aug. 1, allowing eligible card users to convert purchase rewards automatically into Bitcoin, tokenized gold, U.S. equity tokens, an exchange-traded fund token or USDC.

Summary

Seven reward assets include Bitcoin, tokenized gold, three U.S. stocks, an ETF, and USDC options. Eligible cardholders receive 2% base rewards, while qualifying users can unlock 3% during booster periods. Rewards become redeemable seven days after transactions and require at least one USDC before withdrawal. The company said users can select one of seven assets: BTC, Tether Gold, tokenized Nvidia, Tesla and Alphabet shares, an S&P 500 product, or USDC. Rewards will be generated from qualifying purchases made with the Bitget Wallet Card.

Bitget Wallet replaces cash rewards with seven assets Assetback provides a 2% base reward for cardholders. New users and customers who meet a monthly spending threshold can receive up to 3% through a booster tier. Once unlocked, the higher rate applies during that calendar month and the next one. 

Users may change their selected reward asset once each month. USDC rewards are credited to the card balance, while other rewards can be moved to a rewards account after reaching at least one USDC in accumulated value. Redemption becomes available seven days after the underlying transaction. 

However, the advertised rate does not apply to every payment. Bitget Wallet says monthly caps, merchant-category exclusions and risk reviews apply. Refunded, reversed or cancelled transactions do not qualify. The model also replaces the card’s previous zero-fee rewards program, so users should review regional fees and limits.

Tokenized stocks provide exposure, not standard shares The stock and ETF rewards will use xStocks, which issues blockchain tokens backed by securities held in custody. Available choices include Nvidia, Tesla, Alphabet and an S&P 500-linked product. xStocks says each token is backed one-for-one by underlying securities.

However, tokenized equities are not identical to holding shares through a conventional brokerage account. Rights, redemption access, trading availability and investor protections depend on the issuer, platform and user’s location. Bitget Wallet also describes the rewards as available only to eligible users.

As previously reported, Bitget Wallet added more than 130 xStocks products in May, allowing users to access tokenized equities through its self-custodial application. In related coverage, crypto.news explained how tokenized stocks work, including issuer, custody, liquidity and regulatory risks.

Card access still depends on each user’s region Bitget Wallet says the card serves markets across Europe, Asia and Latin America, with availability also expanding in Africa. Its official card page states that cards may operate through Visa or Mastercard depending on the regional issuing partner. The product supports Apple Pay and Google Pay in eligible markets.

The card converts selected crypto assets to fiat when users pay merchants. Official terms state that customers must complete identity checks and live in supported jurisdictions. The terms also permit applicable conversion, foreign-exchange and other charges, meaning Assetback should not be treated as a guaranteed net return.

Bitget Wallet says it has more than 100 million users and that spending through its card nearly tripled during the first half of 2026. It also cited monthly crypto-card payment volume of $656 million in May, up from $271 million one year earlier. Those figures are company-provided and have not been independently audited.

The Aug. 1 rollout will test actual demand Users will need Bitget Wallet app version 9.5.3 or later to access the updated card. After selecting an asset, eligible cashback will be converted automatically, creating small recurring purchases rather than requiring a separate trade after every card payment.Bitget Wallet describes the process as applying “dollar-cost averaging” to routine spending. That is a company characterization, not a promise that the selected assets will gain value. Bitcoin, tokenized gold and equity-linked products can rise or fall after rewards are credited.

There is no verified market reaction because Bitget Wallet is not publicly traded and the announcement does not introduce a new token. The next measurable updates will be redemption activity, reward volumes and whether regional cardholders adopt non-cash rewards after Aug. 1.

Japanese game developer Gumi said it will begin operating a 3 billion yen (about $18.3 million) crypto asset fund on Saturday with SBI Financial Services and backing from Daiwa Securities Group and other investors.

The fund is operated by SBI Crypto Fund, a joint venture owned 51% by SBI Financial Services and 49% by Gumi subsidiary gC Labs.

According to Gumi’s Tuesday announcement, the fund will invest primarily in Bitcoin and major altcoins, using staking, portfolio rebalancing and hedging strategies. 

The company said the fund’s mission is to bridge Japan’s corporate sector and the crypto market while building an operational track record ahead of a possible future lifting of Japan’s ban on crypto exchange-traded funds.

The launch builds on Gumi’s expanding crypto business, which includes managing its own crypto holdings centered on XRP, portfolio management services through Hinode Technologies and crypto investment funds.

The company’s latest annual report shows crypto has become a significant part of its balance sheet. As of April 30, 2026, Gumi held 14.13 billion yen in crypto assets, nearly doubling from 7.58 billion yen a year earlier. 

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Vanguard, one of the world’s leading investment management firms, has increased its exposure to Bitcoin-related equities through a significant addition to its holdings in Strive Asset Management. The move highlights a broader trend of institutional interest in companies with ties to Bitcoin.

Vanguard boosts Strive Asset Management stakeVanguard’s Total Stock Market Index Fund (VTSAX) acquired an additional 269,200 shares of Strive Asset Management, bringing its total investment to approximately $3.2 million. With this purchase, the fund’s overall holdings in Strive now reach 1.98 million shares, with a combined market value of roughly $23.7 million.

Strive Asset Management primarily focuses on corporate engagement and investment strategies that include exposure to Bitcoin treasury holdings. The company has drawn increased attention from institutional investors seeking access to digital asset markets through equity positions.

Mini dictionary: Strive Asset Management, a US-based asset management firm that advocates shareholder-driven stewardship and has gained attention for investing in companies with significant Bitcoin holdings.

Data from BitcoinTreasuries.NET showed the increased activity, reflecting a pattern seen among several major asset managers as they seek to diversify portfolios with crypto-linked assets.

Vanguard Holdings in StriveShares AddedTotal SharesEstimated ValueJuly 2026269,2001.98 million$23.7 millionInstitutional adoption gathers paceJoe Burnett, Director of Market Research at The Bitcoin Way, commented on social media that the growing integration of Bitcoin into mainstream markets is increasingly occurring through passive investment channels like index funds and ETFs.

A growing portion of global capital is passive, simply tracking returns and mirroring market allocations. The world is starting to own Bitcoin, sometimes without even realizing it.

This trend, Burnett explained, suggests that many mainstream investors are gradually becoming exposed to Bitcoin-related assets as part of diversified fund portfolios, rather than through direct purchases of cryptocurrencies.

Evolving stance at VanguardIn early 2024, Vanguard held a cautious approach to cryptocurrency. The firm, under then-CEO Tim Buckley, declined to offer spot Bitcoin ETFs to its brokerage clients. This policy shifted after the appointment of Salim Ramji as CEO. Ramji, a former BlackRock executive with experience overseeing the launch of BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF (IBIT), brought a more receptive attitude towards digital assets.

By late 2025, Vanguard reversed a key policy and lifted its restriction on digital asset ETFs, although it maintained that it would not launch proprietary crypto products. The company continued increasing stakes in companies with substantial Bitcoin treasury reserves, such as Strive Asset Management, building on earlier disclosures from April regarding its growing shareholdings.

Vanguard drew further industry attention in July by advertising for a newly created position: Head of Digital Assets for Personal Wealth. The role signals expanded ambitions in digital asset management and direct engagement with evolving investor demand for cryptocurrencies within traditional finance platforms.

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.