Bitcoin Magazine

Dubai-Based Emirates Airline Adds Bitcoin and Crypto Payments 

People can now pay with Bitcoin to buy flights from Dubai-based airline Emirates. 

Working with Crypto.com, Emirates said Tuesday the customers now have the option to book flights using the crypto exchange’s payment feature.

Crypto.com and Emirates last year announced they would work together. 

Emirates’ Deputy President and Chief Commercial Officer Adnan Kazim said the move “reflects the rapidly evolving preferences of a younger, digitally fluent generation who manage their money and plan their journeys primarily from their phones and they expect the airlines they fly with to keep pace.”

Emirates first teased plans back in 2022 to implement Bitcoin payments; the latest move allows Crypto.com customers to use any digital assets to make payments. 

Under the new setup, travelers with a Crypto.com account can select Crypto.com Pay at checkout when booking on emirates.com or through the Emirates App. 

The option is limited for now to eligible UAE residents making bookings priced and settled in Emirati Dirham.

The integration runs through Crypto.com’s Dubai-licensed entity, which the company says was the first virtual asset service provider to receive a Stored Value Facilities license from the Central Bank of the UAE. 

The launch also feeds into wider government targets. It supports Dubai’s Cashless Strategy, part of the D33 Economic Agenda, which is aiming to make 90% of transactions across the emirate’s government and private sectors digital by the end of 2026. 

It follows on from an earlier Emirates partnership with Dubai Finance to advance digital payments, and comes after Crypto.com struck its own deal with Dubai Finance to accept digital payments for government services.

This post Dubai-Based Emirates Airline Adds Bitcoin and Crypto Payments  first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

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I Scanned the Entire Bitcoin Blockchain for Images. What I Found Will Shock You

I scanned the Bitcoin blockchain for images; what I found will shock you. Much has been said online about the arbitrary data and content that can be found on the Bitcoin blockchain. Not only has this possibility spawned a niche art scene, but it has also led to a movement against ‘non-monetary transactions’ on the Bitcoin network. Were you to hear from one of its proponents or detractors, you’d figure the blockchain is basically a wall filled with graffiti. 

Well, I decided to put the question to the test: are there actually images on the blockchain? And what does this actually mean for Bitcoiners simply trying to run their own full node and maximize their financial sovereignty?

My methodology was simple: I was to buy a fresh hard drive to store the blockchain on, and then I was going to run classic image recovery software over the data- something used to rescue images from broken hard drives, something designed to find raw image data. 

I chose PhotoRec to do the image recovery work, an open source image recovery program that’s been around for over 20 years. The software is designed to find image files in raw data. This can be used to recover images and other file formats from hard drives that have failed or been corrupted. It is actually often used to recover lost wallet.dat files from the early days of Bitcoin wallets, before the proliferation of the seed word format. 

Syncing The Full Bitcoin Node 

For storage of the full Bitcoin blockchain, I decided to buy a 4-terabyte disk drive for a couple hundred dollars. I then installed the latest version of Bitcoin Core on it and started to sync the chain. The process, which involves downloading and verifying the accounting integrity of all transactions in Bitcoin history, took about 72 hours or three days, automated and running in the background by the Bitcoin Core software.

I did this with an otherwise powerful gaming machine; the main bottleneck in terms of time was the disk drive, which is slow to read and write data as needed when syncing Bitcoin’s blockchain. The slow part of the process involves the unspent transaction output set, or UTXO. When a user syncs the blockchain, every unspent transaction value (output) or positive balance is organized into the UTXO set, and as those values are spent, they are removed from the set, while the new address to which those satoshi were sent is added. 

On the disk drive, this UTXO indexing process could have taken three weeks according to some estimates, so to speed it up, my clanker (AI agent) suggested we index the data in RAM instead, then move the data back to the 4-terabyte disk drive. While the whole process took three days, running in the background, an SSD could have done the whole job in about a day. SSD drives are much faster than disk drives; they are more modern, but they are also easily four times the price, or more.

Once the blockchain was fully downloaded and validated, we moved the UTXO index from RAM back to the disk and booted the Bitcoin software; the chain was fully synced and the wallet ready to go. Now it was time for the next step: recovering the images stored on the blockchain.

Image Recovery on the Blockchain with PhotoRec

With the full Bitcoin blockchain on my disk drive, I turned off Bitcoin Core and asked my clanker (Cursor AI agent) to run PhotoRec 7.2 on the drive. The default PhotoRec process looks for jpg, png, gif, tif, bmp, ico, psd, and raw formats. The process ran for over 11 hours on the blockchain data and ultimately found … (drum roll) … nothing.

Over a terabyte of blockchain data and half a day of scanning and no images turned up. The PhotoRec wiki page gives a simple example of how the software works: “PhotoRec identifies a JPEG file when a block begins with: 0xff, 0xd8, 0xff, 0xe0, 0xff, 0xd8, 0xff, 0xe1, or 0xff, 0xd8, 0xff, 0xfe.” In other words, the program looks at the data on the disk for bytes that signal that there’s an image file. 

The program is capable of false positives; it saved 8 ICOs and 4 identical PNG files that don’t show any images when opened, as seen in the picture below. So, effectively no meaningful images of any kind were found. 

Where Did the Jpegs Go? XOR Magic Tricks

How is this possible? For years, crypto people have been talking about NFTs and how to engrave image data on the Bitcoin blockchain. Millions of dollars have moved in this niche, and a whole culture war is being fought on the matter as we speak. Can there really be no images on the chain? 

Turns out the risks involved with arbitrary data have been discussed and planned for in Bitcoin Core development circles for a long time, as early as 2011. XOR, a simple data obfuscation technique, is used to scramble all the blockchain data while it is at rest on a hard drive. 

You might have heard that the fundamental language of computers is made up of 0’s and 1’s. Well, in a nutshell, XOR compares two digits or bits and returns 1 if the bits are different or 0 if the bits are the same. In the case of Bitcoin, XOR compares every bit of the blockchain data to a random key generated during initial install, resulting in data at rest that other programs can find no meaning in. However, when the Bitcoin software runs, it has the key to unscramble that data and use it at will. XOR is also very fast, so it does not meaningfully impact performance. Here’s an example of the Bitcoin genesis block before and after an XOR.

XOR is currently applied to both the blockchain data and the UTXO set. XOR was initially discussed in 2014 when anti-virus software started getting tripped up by blockchain data it interpreted as virus code. The anti-virus software would then quarantine a block, corrupting the blockchain data and crashing Bitcoin, making sync impossible. By the end of 2015, XOR had been implemented on the UTXO set data at rest and in 2024 it was implemented on all blockchain data at rest. 

Incidentally, the XOR process means that no arbitrary data can be identified or extracted from the blockchain without intentionally bypassing the XOR, a process that is not necessary for monetary use of Bitcoin. Since the Bitcoin Core software keeps a simple database of the location of each scrambled block, it can get its data, unscramble it and use it in a targeted manner easily.

Syncing Bitcoin in an unscrambled way is a custom process that can take as much time as syncing from scratch, since it basically has to re-write the full terabyte of data in a new order, and there’s not much point in that for someone that just wants the normal privacy and security benefits of running a Bitcoin node. So when it comes to the vast majority of copies of the Bitcoin blockchain data, resting on the computers of normal Bitcoiners throughout the world, there’s effectively no arbitrary data or images that can be identified. Shocking, I know. Feel free to run the PhotoRec test yourself on your own node!

This post I Scanned the Entire Bitcoin Blockchain for Images. What I Found Will Shock You first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Juan Galt.

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Bitcoin ETFs Bled Nearly Half a Billion Dollars End of Last Week, Reversing Sentiment

Investors cashed out of American Bitcoin exchange-traded funds at the end of last week, ending a seven days winning streak. 

Data from Farside Investors shows that over $475 million was redeemed from the investment products during trading hours on Thursday and Friday, with BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust handling most of the trading action. 

Risk appetite appeared to be back, too: over a seven-day period, from July 14-22, the funds managed by the likes of Fidelity, Morgan Stanley, and Grayscale, took in just under $1 billion in new investment: $999.3 million. 

The flurry of fresh cash put upwards pressure on the price of Bitcoin. The leading cryptocurrency then dipped on the outflows but is now unmoved over a seven-day period. Bitcoin’s price recently stood at $64,544. 

Year-to-date, Bitcoin is down over 26% and the cryptocurrency has shed nearly 50% of its value since it notched a new record of $126,080 in October. 

The ETFs — approved after nearly a decade of denials by the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2024 — have helped Bitcoin’s price surge as Wall Street investors now have an easy way to buy into the crypto space. 

Despite investors cashing out of major crypto funds, the newest on the market, Morgan Stanley’s Bitcoin Trust, experienced inflows of nearly $9 million Thursday and Friday. 

The fund, which debuted in April, now has close to $400 million in assets under management — making it one of the most successful ETFs of 2026. 

While analysts have called Bitcoin’s bottom, some have said that uncertainty around war in the Middle East and rising oil prices may hold back the cryptocurrency making a rebound. 

European asset management firm CoinShares said earlier this month that while investors are back at putting fresh cash in Bitcoin ETFs, other factors may hold digital asset markets from going higher. 

This post Bitcoin ETFs Bled Nearly Half a Billion Dollars End of Last Week, Reversing Sentiment first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

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Morgan Stanley Bitcoin ETF Nearly Notches $400M in Assets

Wall Street giant Morgan Stanley Bitcoin exchange-traded fund now has close to $400 million in assets under management — despite only launching in April. 

The NYSE Arca-listed fund, which is the first by a bank, got off to a roaring start when it debuted, bringing in over $33 million in fresh cash on its first day. 

Now, the fund has over $391 million in assets, demonstrating the popularity of the product. Many ETFs never reach $400 million in assets at all, let alone in one quarter.

Senior Bloomberg Intelligence ETF analyst Eric Balchunas revealed Friday that the product has been one of the most successful funds launched this year so far. 

This week alone, investors have thrown $15.7 million in new cash at the product, according to Farside Investors data. 

Morgan Stanley has been making big crypto moves for years now. Back in 2021, it started offering wealthy clients exposure to Bitcoin via funds such as those by Galaxy Digital.

And last year, the bank’s CEO and Chairman, Ted Pick, said that the bank was working with regulators to see how they could offer crypto safely.

Back in April, the bank’s head of digital assets, Amy Oldenburg said client education — not product design — is the central challenge facing Bitcoin adoption.

ETF action this week

After weeks of outflows and sloppy price action, American Bitcoin ETFs have taken in fresh cash over the past seven days. 

Farside Investors shows the products have received a total of $274 million in new investment so far this week. 

The funds had been on a winning streak, receiving nearly $1 billion over seven days until Thursday, when every ETF experienced outflows — except for Morgan Stanley’s product. 

Bitcoin’s price was recently trading for $64,096, down over 1% over the past 24 hours. The cryptocurrency is virtually unmoved over a seven-day period. 

European asset management firm CoinShares last week said that while investors are back at putting fresh cash in Bitcoin ETFs, other factors may hold digital asset markets from going higher. 

“We see no significant upside potential from here,” James Butterfill, head of research at CoinShares, wrote.

This post Morgan Stanley Bitcoin ETF Nearly Notches $400M in Assets first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

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State Department to Debut Freedom Tech Program with Bitcoin Policy Institute, Palantir as Founding Partners

The U.S. State Department is launching a program that includes Bitcoin as a way to advance digital freedom worldwide. 

Named the Freedom Tech Excellence Program, the initiative will see the State Department work with the Bitcoin Policy Institute, data-analytics firm Palantir Technologies, defense technology company Anduril Industries, and the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation on issues including online surveillance, encryption, AI governance, and protecting free expression online.

According to the program’s stated goals, participants will focus on five priority areas: First Amendment and free expression protections in the digital age; countering unlawful digital surveillance and online scams; privacy-enhancing technologies such as strong encryption and VPNs; responsible governance of emerging technologies including AI; and safeguarding children and other users online.

The inclusion of the Bitcoin Policy Institute signals that the Department views Bitcoin and blockchain technology as tools relevant to circumventing censorship and financial surveillance in authoritarian states — a theme the organization has long championed in its advocacy work.

The FTEP will operate through limited-term assignments, placing private sector personnel inside the State Department on temporary embeds tasked with shaping diplomatic efforts around specific digital freedom issues. 

President Trump campaigned on a ticket to help the crypto space and since taking office, his government has taken a more pro-crypto approach to both regulating and including elements of the space in his administration. 

In March 2025, for example, President Trump signed an executive order establishing a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and a separate U.S. Digital Asset Stockpile, capitalized with roughly 200,000 Bitcoin already held by the government through criminal and civil forfeiture. 

The order framed Bitcoin alongside strategic reserves the U.S. maintains for materials like gold, petroleum, and pharmaceuticals, treating it as a scarce national asset rather than merely a speculative one.

This post State Department to Debut Freedom Tech Program with Bitcoin Policy Institute, Palantir as Founding Partners first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

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Sealed in Foil: BMAG’s New Focus on Trading Cards

Somewhere right now, on a livestream, someone is tearing open a foil package while hundreds of people watch. Trading cards have become a spectator sport. The card market is at all-time highs, cardboard repriced by the hour, rare cards selling for eight figures, and a general sense of frenzy. But watch enough of it and something strange becomes clear. Nobody is looking at the cards. The audience isn’t consuming images, it’s consuming anticipation.

The card boom has also surfaced hard questions, and the hardest ones surround grading. The past year saw the hobby’s dominant grading house facing scrutiny over grades that shifted after cards moved through its own buyback program, and collectors began asking, who grades the grader. When a single subjective number separates a card from ten times its value, and the arbiter of that number also holds a position in the asset, the hobby has a verification problem. These are, in the language of bitcoiners, trusted-third-party problems.

The two worlds keep arriving at the same three questions: what’s real, what’s rare, and what holds value. A graded slab and a confirmed transaction on the timechain are answers to the same anxiety. Collectors demanding transparent grading and provenance that can’t be quietly revised are asking for verification over trust, whether they use those words or not. In that sense, card collectors and bitcoiners already share the same ideals.

This is why BMAG (Bitcoin Museum and Art Gallery) is making trading cards a serious part of its program. Seven years as the cultural wing of the Bitcoin Conference, more than 130 BTC ($8+ million) in art and collectibles sales, the first Magic: The Gathering tournament at a Bitcoin Conference, staged in Las Vegas with Kraken and on-site TAG grading, and the conviction that cards are asking the same questions bitcoin already answered.

Source: https://my.taggrading.com/card/P7612780

The fullest expression of that focus arrives this August. At Bitcoin Asia 2026, August 27-28 at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, BMAG will debut a full Trading Card Expo on the conference floor. The Expo is anchored by a marketplace of established vendors from across Hong Kong and Southeast Asia, alongside live activations, grading and authentication, card auctions, and a curated gallery presentation surrounding it all. Cards and collectibles will be available for purchase, and attendees are encouraged to bring their own cards for grading or resale to the 40+ card vendors. Hong Kong is one of the most active card markets in the world and a Bitcoin conference is the natural room for it.

But a marketplace alone isn’t the point. The trading card has an art pedigree longer than most people realize. Jefferson Burdick, the father of American card collecting, spent his final years transferring thousands of cards into albums at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where his collection remains today. Art Spiegelman worked at Topps inventing series like Garbage Pail Kids before his mainstream graphic novel successes. And the critic Brian Droitcour recently put his finger on why the format matters right now: a Magic card is an image that does something, rarity and function entwined, while NFTs inherited that logic and captured only the rarity. Droitcour argues that NFTs dissolved the old hierarchy between the artwork and the collectible, and that the most interesting artists working today make objects that are both at once. 

A generation of artists has taken that invitation literally. Over the past few years, a loose scene of mostly pseudonymous artists, formed across crypto subcultures, Twitter timelines, and private group chats, has been quietly staging one of the more genuine artistic rebellions of the decade. Where the establishment crypto-art world courted galleries with polished generative work, these artists went the other direction, making images dense with meme references, anime, veiled art history, and internet debris, layered so deep that critics had to invent new words for them. They call the style schizocollage. In Spike Art Magazine, Dean Kissick placed the work in the lineage of deliberately “bad painting,” a tradition Marcia Tucker gave institutional credentials when she inaugurated the New Museum with an exhibition of that name in 1978. And increasingly, the scene’s work has been heading not toward the gallery wall but toward cardboard: the pack, the pull, the sleeve, and the slab treated not as merchandising afterthoughts but as the medium itself.

BMAG has spent years working in a room the traditional art world ignored, the art gallery inside a Bitcoin conference. When the painter Nardo showed at Bitcoin MENA in 2024, our conversation kept circling memes as units of cultural transmission and the internet’s layered debris as legitimate subject matter for painting. A year later his Citadel, a seven-foot oil painting built from a 4chan meme, debuted at the Bitcoin Conference in Las Vegas: a monument raised to an internet shitpost. The card movement runs on the same current at a different scale, small enough to fit in a penny sleeve. It’s a conversation we’ve continued in these pages all year, with founders like Alladan Flinn of Based Trading Cards, who describes cards as physical timestamps of the Bitcoin movement. We’ll have much more to say about the artists of this scene, and what they’re bringing to Hong Kong, in the weeks ahead.

The Card Expo debuts at Bitcoin Asia 2026, August 27-28 at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre. Vendors of cards, collectibles, and related goods can apply for a table here. Tables are limited.

Follow BMAG on X at @BMAG_HQ for new partnership announcements, auctions, and first looks at the artists coming to Hong Kong.

This post Sealed in Foil: BMAG’s New Focus on Trading Cards first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Dennis Koch.

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Smarter Web Company Sells Bitcoin to Clear $11.7 Million Debt Facility

The Smarter Web Company has sold a portion of its Bitcoin treasury to repay an $11.7 million convertible debt facility held by TOBAM, a move the company frames as a choice for balance-sheet flexibility over equity dilution.

The company sold 177.8909127 BTC at an average price of $65,762 to retire the instrument, known as the “Smarter Convert,” ahead of schedule. The transaction totaled $11,698,540 and was settled roughly two weeks early. After the sale, Smarter Web still holds 2,700 BTC in treasury.

Smarter Web’s financing decisions 

On its face, a Bitcoin treasury company selling part of its holdings can read as a signal of weakening conviction. But the transaction is a debt-management decision.

Smarter Web was not exiting its Bitcoin position. It used BTC to extinguish a debt obligation and avoid issuing 7,718,551 ordinary shares, an outcome that would have diluted existing shareholders had the convertible converted into equity instead.

Bitcoin treasury companies typically generate headlines in one direction: a purchase, a rise in total holdings, a deeper commitment to Bitcoin as a balance-sheet asset. Investors respond according to their view of corporate crypto exposure, but the pattern is usually additive.

Smarter Web sold Bitcoin to settle a specific financing instrument, the company said. That is different from a sale driven by lost confidence in the asset, and different again from a forced sale tied to a liquidity shortfall.

The company faced a capital-structure choice. It could leave the convertible in place and risk dilution from a future conversion into shares, or it could draw down part of its Bitcoin position to repay the debt directly. Management chose the second path, prioritizing a cleaner balance sheet over preserving the full Bitcoin position.

For shareholders, the logic may be more legible than the alternative. A new issuance of millions of ordinary shares carries a direct and immediate dilutive effect on per-share value. 

A reduction in Bitcoin holdings, by contrast, leaves the company’s per-share equity structure untouched while removing a fixed liability from the balance sheet.

Smarter Web’s remaining 2,700 BTC treasury indicates the company has not abandoned its Bitcoin strategy. The sale addressed one financing obligation, not the broader thesis behind the holdings.

This post Smarter Web Company Sells Bitcoin to Clear $11.7 Million Debt Facility first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

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BlackRock Says Crypto Can Outrun the Quantum Threat — If It Moves Fast Enough

BlackRock, the world’s biggest asset manager, has chimed in on the crypto-quantum debate — and is surprisingly optimistic.

The firm, which manages over $15 trillion in assets, said in its new report, Quantum Computing and Blockchains, that upgrading existing cryptography to quantum-resistant standards is a far easier task than actually building a functional quantum computer capable of breaking that cryptography. 

“In our view, PQ migration for cryptocurrencies is eminently addressable from a technical

standpoint, and the key challenge is one of timely coordination and implementation,” the report read. 

The crypto community has sounded the alarm about hypothetical advancements in quantum computers that could in the future be able to break Bitcoin’s cryptography. Some in the space — including Bitcoin developers — have started preparing for a post-quantum future by testing quantum-resistant signatures on live sidechains. 

Quantum computers do exist but make mistakes and a machine that can break Bitcoin’s cryptography currently does not exist. Bitcoin currently is the biggest computer network in existence. 

BlackRock has skin in the game after having debuted in 2024 spot Bitcoin and Ethereum exchange-traded funds. BlackRock’s Bitcoin fund had the most successful launch in the history of the ETF industry. 

BlackRock boss Larry Fink has also talked of Bitcoin being “digital gold” and an “international asset” and has spoken about how crypto networks can help tokenize everything. 

BlackRock’s views on Bitcoin 

The report said that while solutions exist for protecting Bitcoin against quantum computers — it is technically simple to upgrade — coordination is hard given the cryptocurrency’s decentralized, consensus-driven development.

BlackRock noted that about 35% of circulating Bitcoin’s supply is potentially vulnerable to certain attack types due to exposed public keys, and 11-19% may be permanently lost regardless of migration.

Along with crypto bigwigs like Coinbase, Fidelity Digital Assets, and Block, BlackRock on Thursday announced a new Bitcoin Security Consortium aimed at donating funds to engineers to help their open-source work supporting proposals like BIP-360.

The asset manager added in the report that while BIP-360 is a credible, well-designed piece of a larger puzzle, it stopped short of calling it the solution. Still, it added that Bitcoin and other crypto networks had the advantage. 

“That said, it is a much less daunting task to upgrade current cryptographic systems (including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and others) to a quantum-secure standard than it is to build a CRQC from where quantum computing progress stands today,” the report noted. 

“Thus, advantage remains decidedly with the defense, at the current juncture.”

This post BlackRock Says Crypto Can Outrun the Quantum Threat — If It Moves Fast Enough first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

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Lightning Labs Launches Wavelength: “Bitcoin on Easy Mode” for Developers and Autonomous Agents

Lightning Labs, the company developing core Lightning Network software including Lnd, Loop, and Taproot Assets, has released the alpha version of Wavelength. The toolkit enables developers and AI agents to add self-custodial Bitcoin payments to applications through a simple non-custodial API, without running nodes, managing channels, or sourcing liquidity.

In a July 21, 2026 blog post, Lightning Labs described Wavelength as “Bitcoin on Easy Mode for Agents and Humans.” The company stated that the Lightning Network already delivers instant, global, low-fee payments under user control, but previously required infrastructure most builders preferred not to operate. Wavelength closes that gap by turning the hard parts of Bitcoin and Lightning integration into a handful of API calls.

High-Level Overview

Wavelength embeds a self-custodial wallet that runs inside web or mobile apps (via WebAssembly or compiled binaries) or as a standalone client. Users control their own keys on-device. The system supports on-chain Bitcoin, Lightning payments via atomic swaps, and an Ark-like settlement layer for fast, low-cost off-chain transfers that can settle in batches to the blockchain. Every off-chain payment uses a standard BOLT 11 invoice, so the wallet interoperates with the existing Lightning Network from the first integration.

Lightning payments route through Loop for deep, reliable liquidity. A coordination service settles transfers between users but never takes unilateral control of funds. According to the announcement, users can always perform a unilateral exit to on-chain Bitcoin at any time via an explicit exit command, without needing cooperation, the Wavelength SDK is open source.

The same Wavelength API is exposed to AI agents as typed tool calls through the Model Context Protocol (MCP). Agents can hold balances and pay for API calls, data feeds, or other agent services in fractions of a cent. Wallet creation and unlocking designed to remain outside the agent channel so seeds and passwords are not exposed to the model. This pairs with L402, Lightning Labs’ protocol for machine-native authentication and per-request Lightning payments.

Core commands cover the full lifecycle: create/unlock, balance, recv (for addresses or invoices), send, activity, and exit. Integration options include the embedded SDK, a gRPC/REST API, browser WASM package, and an MCP server. Documentation is structured for both human developers and agents, including llms.txt indexes and agent onboarding guidance.

Availability and Roadmap

Wavelength is available immediately on Signet and testnet. Mainnet access is invitation-only; interested parties can request it after installing the toolkit. Bitcoin is supported at launch. Stablecoin support is planned via Taproot Assets so the same API surface can handle both. Future work includes deeper mobile embedding and optional direct Lightning channel support using Lnd.

Lightning Labs noted in its announcement that during the closed alpha, Lightning transactions carry a minimal 1 basis point service fee (plus standard network routing fees), with ordinary Bitcoin network fees applying for on-chain activity. Pricing may evolve.

On X, Lightning Labs summarized the release: “Announcing Wavelength, the easiest way to integrate bitcoin for agents and humans. With a simple non-custodial API, anyone can integrate Lightning into their app and get instant, high volume, low fee transactions. Machines can pay machines. Humans can pay humans. Anywhere.” A follow-up post directed builders to a form for early mainnet access.

The release positions Wavelength as infrastructure that lowers the barrier for application developers, “vibe coders,” and autonomous agents to offer self-custodial Bitcoin payments by default rather than as a specialist feature. Full documentation, quickstarts, and the open-source repository are available at wavelength.lightning.engineering and the linked GitHub project.

This post Lightning Labs Launches Wavelength: “Bitcoin on Easy Mode” for Developers and Autonomous Agents first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Juan Galt.

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White House Presses Senate Democrats To Accept Trump Ethics Deal On Clarity Act

The White House is pushing Senate Democrats to accept a conflict-of-interest agreement that President Donald Trump worked out with Republicans, a move that negotiators hope will settle the last major dispute in the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act.

A White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told CoinDesk that Trump “has agreed to the most comprehensive and wide-ranging ethics provision in history.” 

No details have emerged on what crypto restrictions Trump has consented to, and Democrats have been kept out of the loop on the provision.

The ethics section would restrict senior government officials from personal business ties to the crypto industry, including Trump, whose family holdings have generated more than $2 billion in new wealth since he returned to office, according to Reuters. Release of the final draft has stalled for several days as negotiators work through the language.

Democratic lawmakers have not received a briefing on the concession, though Republicans and the crypto industry have begun a sales campaign that casts Democrats as the obstacle.

“If Senate Democrats block this historic legislation after the administration has bent over backward to accommodate their concerns, stakeholders should make no mistake: It is the Democrats who are blocking this legislation because they were never serious about a legislative outcome,” the White House official said.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has added his voice to the push, saying that lawmakers stood at the “1-yard line” on the Clarity Act and urging Congress to pass the bill before the recess.

Clarity Act updates coming out of the White House

Democratic negotiators such as Senators Kirsten Gillibrand, Ruben Gallego and Angela Alsobrooks have not seen details of the agreement with Trump, who met with Republican senators at the White House last week.

Many of the Democrats have drawn a line that the ethics provision needs to be strong. Trump has pressed the Senate to pass the Clarity Act, and his disclosure that he made more than $1 billion from crypto in 2025 has given critics fresh ammunition.

The Clarity Act’s text cleared the Senate Banking Committee in a 15-9 vote, with Gallego and Alsobrooks joining Republicans to advance it. 

Both said in May they would not back the final passage without an ethics provision. During the committee markup, an amendment from Senator Chris Van Hollen to bar the president, vice president and members of Congress from crypto business ties failed 11-13.

The industry expects full circulation of the legislative text this week, according to CoinDesk. 

The Senate has fewer than three weeks to finish the bill and clear a floor vote before Majority Leader John Thune’s August 7 deadline, when lawmakers break for their reelection campaigns and enter a narrow stretch to finish the bill. 

Galaxy Research puts the odds of passage at 50-50.

This post White House Presses Senate Democrats To Accept Trump Ethics Deal On Clarity Act first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

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U.S. Senator: Clarity Act is ‘Almost There,’ Treasury Secretary Puts It at the ‘1-Yard Line’

Senator Kevin Cramer said the Senate has moved close to a deal on the Clarity Act, the crypto market-structure bill, with a fresh set of amendments on ethics and enforcement before Democrats for review.

The North Dakota Republican, a member of the Senate Banking Committee, told Fox Business on Tuesday that the bill grows “clearer” as “each issue gets dealt with,” and that “we’re almost there.” He said the largest holdup is Democrats reading the new amendments, “some of them relevant to the ethics piece.”

The central compromise Cramer described concerns who enforces the law. He said there appears to be “some agreement that the Department of Justice would be the prevailing enforcer,” a structure he backed as the source of uniform rules. Democrats, he said, had preferred a role for state attorneys general, an approach he argued would create “too disparate a situation” for the clarity the industry seeks.

Ethics fight over President Trump

That enforcement question sits at the heart of a months-long ethics fight over President Trump’s crypto ventures. 

Senator Cynthia Lummis, who chairs the Banking Committee’s digital assets subcommittee, had floated language that would let state attorneys general sue exchanges that list tokens issued by public officials, a provision aimed at holdings tied to the president and his family. 

Democrats on the committee have pressed for enforceable conflict-of-interest rules, and an amendment to bar the president, vice president, and members of Congress from crypto business ties failed on a party-line vote during the committee markup. 

Trump has met with senators over the ethics dispute as the White House and negotiators work toward terms. The shift Cramer outlined would route that enforcement to federal prosecutors rather than to fifty separate state offices, a change that narrows the paths available to challenge a listed token but centralizes the decision to act in the Justice Department.

Cramer said the Senate has “a couple more weeks” before the August recess, and echoed Lummis in the push for passage before the break. 

“We have to get this done,” he said about the Clarity Act. 

Lummis, in an interview last week, said the bill was “ready” and that it was “very important” to move it across the finish line before the recess, so that markets could see “the stability that will be provided to them if they remain on shore in the United States.”

Cramer flagged one more sticking point beyond enforcement: the definition of securities intermediaries. “The industry doesn’t like that,” he said, and noted a preference for a definition built around decentralization. He cast the remaining gaps as matters of “small details.”

Lots of clarity about the Clarity Act

The Clarity Act would split oversight of digital assets between the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, set disclosure rules for certain tokens, and extend anti-money-laundering and sanctions rules to crypto exchanges. The House passed its version a year ago, and the measure has waited in the Senate since. 

The Senate Banking Committee advanced its version of the Clarity Act in a 15-9 vote this spring, with two Democrats crossing over.

The timeline is tight. Majority Leader John Thune has aimed to bring the bill to the floor before the work period ends in early August, and House members have urged the Senate to act within the window. 

The CFTC chair called the bill “so close”, while Galaxy Research cut its passage odds to 50-50 as the clock ran down. 

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessen: Clarity Act on ‘1-yard line’

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent added his voice to the push, telling Bloomberg that lawmakers stood at the “1-yard line” on the Clarity Act and urging Congress to pass the bill before the recess.

The bill competes for floor time with a continuing resolution to avert a government shutdown at the end of September and a reconciliation package, priorities Cramer ranked ahead of other items in the same interview. President Trump has pressed the chamber to pass the crypto measure, a message he has paired with warnings about competition from China.

For all the optimism, Cramer stopped short of a firm date. “I don’t know that we get to it this week,” he said, a caveat that leaves the bill’s fate to the narrow stretch of Senate days before lawmakers leave Washington.

This post U.S. Senator: Clarity Act is ‘Almost There,’ Treasury Secretary Puts It at the ‘1-Yard Line’ first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

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Bitcoin-Treasury Capital B Plans 10-for-1 Reverse Stock Split for September

Capital B, the Paris-listed bitcoin treasury company once known as The Blockchain Group, will combine every 10 existing shares into one new share beginning September 8, according to a regulatory filing the company published Monday.

The consolidation reduces the number of outstanding shares from 300,650,632 to 30,065,063. Each new share will carry a par value of €0.80, up from €0.08 for the existing stock. The company framed the transaction as a “purely technical exchange” that leaves the aggregate value of each shareholder’s holdings unchanged, save for the treatment of fractional entitlements.

Capital B said the move aims to “support the company’s institutional development and to open the company’s shares to a broader universe of investors.” 

Many institutional funds operate under internal rules that bar them from holding stocks below a set price, and some exchanges impose minimum-price thresholds for continued listing. A higher quoted price per share removes one barrier to that participation.

Capital B shares trade near €0.48 on Euronext Growth Paris and have declined about 40% since the start of the year, per Google Finance data. Should the company’s market value hold, each consolidated share would open near €4.80.

Key dates for Capital B shareholders

The reverse split period runs from August 6 through September 7. Shareholders who hold a number of shares divisible by 10 will see their positions converted with no action required. 

Those holding leftover shares can buy or sell stock before the deadline to reach a round multiple of 10. For investors who do not, financial intermediaries will sell the shares tied to fractional entitlements and distribute the cash proceeds, with payments set to begin September 14.

September 7 marks the final trading day for the existing shares. The consolidated shares start trading the following day under a new ISIN, the code exchanges use to identify a security. The company has set September 9 as the record date and September 10 for settlement and delivery.

Capital B will also pause conversions of certain convertible bonds and exercises of share warrants from August 17 through September 10. After the split, the company will adjust conversion prices and warrant ratios to reflect the reduced share count, multiplying bond conversion prices by 10 while dividing warrant ratios and unvested free shares by 10.

Treasury strategy stays central

The share restructuring does not add bitcoin to the balance sheet or raise new capital on its own. It changes the number and nominal value of shares through a technical consolidation, a step the company tied to its goal of reaching a wider investor base.

Capital B’s bitcoin holdings

Capital B holds 3,139 BTC, a figure that ranks it as the second-largest listed corporate bitcoin holder in Europe, according to BitcoinTreasuries.net. Germany’s Bitcoin Group SE sits ahead of it with 3,605 BTC, the data shows. Capital B, which describes itself as Europe’s first bitcoin treasury company, built much of that position through fundraising rounds during the first half of 2026. 

In May, it acquired 192 BTC for €13 million after completing three capital raises.

The company has moved to widen its access to capital. In June, shareholders approved authority for as much as €5 billion in capital increases and €100 billion in credit instruments, resolutions that drew more than 95% support from votes cast. Those approvals give the board financing capacity for future purchases.

Capital B measures progress through bitcoin held per fully diluted share rather than total reserves alone, a framework common among bitcoin treasury companies. The firm has also said it is developing a bitcoin-backed credit product for the European market, though it has not set a launch date.

This post Bitcoin-Treasury Capital B Plans 10-for-1 Reverse Stock Split for September first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

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Bitcoin Sentiment Is Turning Bullish — But It’s Too Early to Celebrate: Report

The Bitcoin bottom may be in — but don’t get your hopes up: It might struggle to go up anytime soon, according to one investment firm. 

A Friday report from European asset management firm CoinShares said that investors last week threw fresh cash at Bitcoin — and other crypto — exchange-traded products, indicating a change in sentiment. 

But other factors may hold digital asset markets from going higher, James Butterfill, head of research at CoinShares, wrote. 

“We have said for some time that Bitcoin has probably reached, or is close to, its floor,” the report read. “But we see no significant upside potential from here.”

The report added that current macroeconomic headwinds, such as the US bombing Iran and rising oil prices, could see inflation go up again. 

Bitcoin’s price was up earlier this week, hitting a seven-day high of $65,501 on news that inflation in the US was softer than expected. It has since erased those gains and was recently trading for $64,010. 

The price of Bitcoin has typically done well on news that inflation is coming down because investors expect interest rates to come down. But Butterfill said that “a rate cut does not look probable at this stage.”

Bitcoin’s worst run on record

CoinShares’ data showed that investors pulled a total of $8 billion out of funds giving crypto exposure — “the worst run on record.” 

Last week, though, things reversed when $287 million hit crypto funds, CoinShares said, with the data so far showing that this week looks likely to be another positive streak.

The price of Bitcoin has typically done well when US investors — previously excluded from crypto investing — have bought shares in exchange-traded funds approved in 2024. 

The products — handled by the likes of BlackRock, Fidelity, and Grayscale — allow more traditional investors or Wall Street institutions to buy positions in Bitcoin via shares that trade on stock exchanges. 

Since BTC’s October all-time high of $126,080, crypto markets have faced a battering as those investors have fast cashed out of the funds. Bitcoin has struggled to make gains, especially after the US and Israel started bombing Iran, leading to a surge in the price of oil. 

The leading cryptocurrency is now nearly 50% below its record. 

“The dominant picture is that the current setup is prompting interest in adding positions, but caution prevails while sentiment remains broadly negative,” CoinShares added. 

This post Bitcoin Sentiment Is Turning Bullish — But It’s Too Early to Celebrate: Report first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

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SBI Holdings Takes Majority Stake in Singapore’s Coinhako After MAS Approval

SBI Holdings has completed the acquisition of a majority stake in Coinhako, a Singapore-based cryptocurrency platform, after securing approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). 

The Japanese financial group made the purchase through its subsidiary SBI Ventures Asset Pte. Ltd., which injected capital into Coinhako parent Holdbuild Pte. Ltd. and bought shares from existing shareholders. The transaction closed July 16, making Coinhako a consolidated subsidiary.

Coinhako operates through Hako Technology Pte. Ltd., holder of a Major Payment Institution license from MAS, and Alpha Hako Ltd., a crypto asset service provider registered with the British Virgin Islands Financial Services Commission. 

The platform spent a decade building a customer base across Southeast Asia, a region SBI now positions as a base for its digital asset strategy.

SBI plans to combine Coinhako’s customer base, operational expertise, and regional network with its own financial services, technology, and global footprint. The company intends to expand a digital asset corridor that starts with Japan and Southeast Asia, and to develop services tied to its JPYSC yen-denominated stablecoin. SBI also flagged opportunities in tokenization, on-chain finance, and cross-border trading.

“Our group aims to create a global corridor for digital assets by connecting exchanges around the world, enabling investors worldwide to make optimal investments without being hindered by national borders or currency barriers,” Chairman Yoshitaka Kitao said. He described Singapore as a crucial region because its digital asset regulations are ahead of the curve.

Coinhako co-founder and CEO Yusho Liu called the deal a natural step. “For the past 10 years, we have built from the ground up Southeast Asia’s most trusted and legally compliant cryptocurrency platform in the world’s most advanced regulatory environment,” he said, adding that SBI’s backing gives the firm a stronger foundation.

SBI Holding’s crypto moves

The acquisition caps a run of crypto moves by the conglomerate, which holds more than 14 million users and $308 billion in assets under custody. In the past month, SBI led EDX Markets’ $76 million Series C, backed risk manager Gauntlet, launched JPYSC, and partnered with the Solana Foundation on an on-chain financial market in Japan. 

In June, the group agreed to buy Tokyo exchange Bitbank for about $289 million, and this week it teamed with Ondo Finance to tokenize Japanese equities.

One limit remains: JPYSC does not yet support withdrawals to external wallets, which confines its use to SBI’s own platform.

This post SBI Holdings Takes Majority Stake in Singapore’s Coinhako After MAS Approval first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

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Fed Chair Warsh: No Bailout for Crypto Industry in Crisis

Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh told the House Financial Services Committee on July 14 that the central bank will decline to rescue the cryptocurrency industry in a crisis, a message he delivered during his first semiannual monetary policy testimony as chair.

The exchange came from Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA), a longtime crypto skeptic, who asked whether the Fed would backstop failing digital-asset firms the way it supported money market funds in 2008. Warsh rejected the premise. “We do not want to be in the bailout business, full stop,” he said. He added, “We want to be in a position where we’re not bailing out anybody, including crypto.”

Warsh, who took office May 15 and presided over his first FOMC meeting in June, framed the stance through his own history. 

As a Fed governor under Chairman Ben Bernanke, he helped design the 2008 rescue effort. “I still have the scars from the 2008 financial crisis,” he said. “That is not something we want to repeat.” He argued that the post-crisis bailouts bred moral hazard, and he wants to spare digital assets the same fate.

For a market that spent years seeking legitimacy alongside traditional finance, the comments draw a hard line. Warsh, described as the first crypto-native Fed chair, has treated Bitcoin as a gauge rather than a ward of the state. During his nomination hearing he called Bitcoin “not a substitute for the U.S. dollar,” and he has used its price as a thermometer for whether monetary policy sits in the right place.

Warsh chimes in on the GENIUS Act rules deadline

The warning lands days before a pivotal deadline. Rules to implement the GENIUS Act, the stablecoin law enacted in 2025, are due Saturday, and Warsh confirmed the Fed is “racing” to publish its proposals on time.

The statute pays stablecoin holders ahead of other creditors when an issuer fails and requires full reserves behind each coin. With the stablecoin market near $310 billion, Sherman pressed the point that a run on one issuer could spread across the sector.

Warsh declined to offer an absolute pledge. He told lawmakers the Fed would act to limit “extraordinary” risks over the next four years, language that leaves room for intervention in a systemic event. American Banker noted that he declined to rule out any future step-in.

At the Senate Banking Committee the following day, Warsh urged banking regulators to coordinate on GENIUS Act rulemaking to prevent regulatory arbitrage, a race that lets firms hunt for the lightest oversight. 

He paired that call with a defense of Fed independence on monetary policy and a pledge to shrink a balance sheet that sits near $6.7 trillion.

The takeaway for crypto is a market-discipline era: the Fed will set the rules of the road, yet firms that overreach will bear the cost of their own failures. For an industry that courted federal backing, Warsh’s message asks it to stand on its own.

This post Fed Chair Warsh: No Bailout for Crypto Industry in Crisis first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

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President Trump To Meet Senators On Clarity Act’s Ethics Fight: Report

President Donald Trump plans to meet with a group of senators at the White House on Thursday afternoon to address the last major obstacle to the crypto market structure bill, according to people familiar with the plans that spoke to Politico and lawmakers involved in the talks.

The sticking point is the ethics section of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, which would restrict senior government officials from holding personal business interests in the crypto sector. Democrats have made such limits a condition of their support, in large part to address Trump’s own ties to the industry. 

Negotiators have not reached a compromise, and the Senate calendar leaves a narrow window.

Senator Bernie Moreno, an Ohio Republican in the negotiations, said the senators will brief the president on the bill and its “path to success.”

“We’ll be talking about the entirety of the bill. I mean, obviously the president’s been very engaged in this bill,” Moreno said. “He’s the one who’s really driven the innovation that I think will pay dividends.”

Trump’s crypto disclosures as the Clarity Act teeters

Clarity’s fate may hinge on what Trump will accept, and on whether he will support a bill that restricts his own businesses. He has pressed the Senate to pass the legislation, though he has not stated which conflict-of-interest terms he will sign into law. His disclosure that he made more than $1 billion from crypto involvement in 2025 gave critics fresh ammunition.

The bill cleared the Senate Banking Committee in a 15-9 vote, with Democrats Ruben Gallego and Angela Alsobrooks joining Republicans to advance it. Both said in May they would not back final passage without an ethics provision. During the committee markup, an amendment from Senator Chris Van Hollen to bar the president, vice president and members of Congress from crypto business ties failed 11-13.

On Tuesday, a group of Democratic senators held a press conference to call for opposition to Clarity if it does not sever what they term Trump’s “corrupt” ties to the sector. Gallego, who has led the ethics negotiation for months, was not among them.

Timing on the revised text remains open. Senator Cynthia Lummis, a Wyoming Republican and a chief architect of the bill, said a draft could circulate as soon as Wednesday, but that senators were weighing whether to include the ethics language or bracket it for later.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he hopes to bring the bill to the floor before the work period ends August 7. Asked whether he would hold a vote absent a deal with Democrats, Thune said, “at some point, we’ll vote on it, yeah.”

The chamber breaks for its summer recess after the first week of August, which opens a narrow stretch to finish Clarity before members turn to the November midterms. Galaxy Research put the odds of passage at 50-50 as the clock runs down.

This post President Trump To Meet Senators On Clarity Act’s Ethics Fight: Report first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

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Bitcoin Price Jumps Over $65,500 on Soft Inflation Data 

The Bitcoin price jumped over $65,500 on Wednesday after US inflation data showed that producer prices fell in June. 

Data from the Labor Department showed that the Producer Price Index posted its biggest decline in 14 months. The PPI, excluding food and energy, fell 0.3% in June, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers. 

Bitcoin’s price was recently trading at $64,943, a 2% 24-hour jump. 

The Bitcoin price has typically surged when signs inflation is cooling emerge as investors then expect a bigger chance of lower interest rates. Crypto, stocks and other “risk-on” assets have in the past done well in a low-interest rate environment. 

Still, the cooling inflation does not take into account the latest escalation in the US-Iran war: President Trump this week said the US would take control over the Strait of Hormuz. 

On Wednesday, the US leader vowed to intensify the bombing until Tehran stops attacking ships in the Strait of Hormuz and agrees to open the waterway. 

“We’re going to hit [Iran] very hard the night after,” President Trump told Fox News on Tuesday. “And then next week it gets really bad for them because next week comes the power plants.”

“The only way you can negotiate with these people is through strength,” he added. 

Bitcoin’s price has faced increased volatility since the US and Israel attacked Iran on February 28, with the leading cryptocurrency dropping hard on initial reports of war.

Since the start of the year, the leading cryptocurrency has shed nearly 30% of its value, and is now close to 50% below the $126,080 record it notched in October. 

Downwards pressure has been added to the Bitcoin price as US investors fast cashed out of spot exchange-traded funds throughout the month of June as inflation uncertainties and a boom in artificial intelligence-related stocks has led speculators to put their cash elsewhere.

Bitcoin price jumps on cooler inflation numbers

Figures released on Tuesday from June’s Consumer Price Index also showed that inflation appeared to be easing in the US, also leading to a jump in the Bitcoin price. 

Over a seven-day period, Bitcoin’s price has traded from $61,507 to as high as $65,501. 

Traders are now keeping an eye on what new Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh — who’s typically been an inflation hawk in the past — will do while leading the central bank. 

The new Chair told congress this week that the Federal Reserve has “no tolerance for persistently elevated inflation,” and that policy makers at the bank share “a resolute commitment to restoring price stability.”

Kevin Warsh was sworn in as the new central bank chief in May. The former Federal Reserve governor has said he wanted to lower the cost of borrowing but markets initially priced him in as a hawk — someone who would raise interest rates to tackle inflation. 

At the time of writing, the bitcoin price is near $65,000.

This post Bitcoin Price Jumps Over $65,500 on Soft Inflation Data  first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

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The Bitcoin Softfork That Tried to Police “Junk Data” — And Why It’s Already Failing

This is a guest post by Brandon Black. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine.

Within the tiny internet bubble of Bitcoin X (formerly Bitcoin Twitter or Crypto Twitter), there has been a lot of noise in the past year about @dathon_ohm’s proposal for a Reduced Data Temporary Softfork, otherwise known as BIP110. Underlying this proposal is the idea that certain Bitcoin transactions have been violating the principles of the network by including in their locking or unlocking scripts data that can be interpreted in one or more additional ways besides their plain Bitcoin script interpretation. According to BIP110’s supporters, reducing the use of these transactions is sufficient justification for the most confiscatory Bitcoin softfork to date, on a deployment timeline that is dramatically faster than the two most recent softforks, and with a lower activation readiness threshold.

Bitcoin is an open-access, censorship-resistant ledger to which anyone can write entries if they are willing to pay fees sufficient to convince block template creators and miners to include their transaction. The fundamental value of Bitcoin vs. all other ledger systems is the aforementioned open access. Without it, Bitcoin’s ledger has no more value than the bowling alley scoreboard. Because of this fundamentally open access, we all know that Bitcoin will be used by those we hate. Much like the principle of free speech, which is meaningless unless it applies to speech that we don’t like, Bitcoin’s open access would be meaningless if it only applied to transactions of which you or I approve. I will therefore assume that we do not want to be in the business of inspecting how other people structure their ledger entries any more than we want them inspecting our entries.

BIP110 proponents might say, “Sure, but that only applies to monetary entries! What about these non-monetary entries?”, but the reality is that there simply is no such distinction. Every transaction made on Bitcoin is made by satisfying the conditions of some locking script to make an entry in the ledger, which consumes input coins and creates output coins. The fact that one transaction’s scripts are larger or smaller than another is of no relevance to me as a Bitcoin node operator or user. First, I simply do not look at other people’s transactions. They’re no more my business than other people’s orders at the local café. Second, my node makes no such distinction. Transactions are either valid or invalid, and they are either costly to validate (like a large multisig) or cheap to validate (like one of these Ordinals or OP_RETURNs).

One could argue that Bitcoin, like gold, would be a superior monetary asset if it could not also be looked at in other ways. Imagine if gold could not be used in industry or jewelry! It might be true that that would make it better as money. But of course, the very same properties that make gold good money also make it desirable in jewelry and industry. The same applies to Bitcoin. The very fact that Bitcoin allows anyone to make an entry if they are willing to pay the fees means that we must give up the idea that we can control how they will look at that entry. No matter what restrictions we put on the structure of the entries, it will always be possible to make entries that can be interpreted in other ways by non-Bitcoin software. So, both with Bitcoin and with gold, we accept that other use is inevitable. In gold, this leads to distortions in the market when non-monetary demand increases or decreases. In Bitcoin, this can lead to periods of higher transaction fees when there’s greater demand for its limited blockspace.

In Bitcoin, we have two advantages that gold does not have. First, making Bitcoin transactions that can be viewed in alternative ways does not affect the market for Bitcoin itself. Unlike gold, very little Bitcoin is allocated to these uses. Second, in Bitcoin, we have a protocol that is already designed to minimize cost to the validation network from such other interpretations. Bitcoin limits both the size of blocks and the number of signatures that can be used in transactions. These are the greatest costs to validating nodes, and the protocol limits on them have been in place since the very early days of Bitcoin, precisely to prevent abuse by any high-frequency or high-volume use of the ledger. These limits have already spurred innovations such as the Lightning Network, Ark, Spark, Cashu, and many more. Even the boom in demand for blockspace caused by these “non-monetary” ledger entries (yes, that does sound ridiculous) has increased the use of these scaling solutions, which require fewer entries on the main ledger.

With the justification for BIP110 thus explored, and hopefully shown to be woefully lacking, let’s look at the proposed change itself. BIP110 restricts the size of locking scripts, restricts the number of alternative scripts in taproot, makes the taproot annex invalid, removes all upgradable witness and tapscript versions, removes all tapscript upgradable opcodes, and makes OP_IF and OP_NOTIF invalid in tapscript. All of these restrictions apply to UTXOs created during the 52414 blocks (approximately 1 year) after its activation. BIP110 also proposes a miner readiness signaling threshold of 55% instead of the threshold used in prior miner signaled softforks of 90% or more. If 55% of blocks do not signal readiness before block 961632, nodes enforcing BIP110 will treat blocks not signaling readiness as invalid to force the change to lock in by block 963648 and activate by block 965664.

BIP110 would be the most sweeping restriction of Bitcoin script since Satoshi’s well-known deactivation of many opcodes in response to a critical vulnerability (CVE-2010-5137) back in 2010. It proposes miner signaled activation with an unprecedentedly low threshold and node-forced activation after less than 9 months from the date the BIP was assigned a number. It does all of this because (as discussed above) other people are viewing certain ledger entries in ways which the BIP110 supporters do not approve of. Worse yet, the folks who use such disapproved ledger entries have already updated their software to continue making such entries even if BIP110 were to become Bitcoin’s consensus rule set. This was, of course, a predictable outcome (many of us explicitly predicted it) because it is fundamentally impossible to restrict how other people use external software to analyze entries on an open-access public ledger.

In summary, BIP110 is a proposal to do something impossible (limit how users of an open access ledger use that ledger) in response to a problem that is already fully addressed through Bitcoin’s existing protocol limits. It proposes to do this impossible thing on an irresponsibly short activation timeline, with incredibly limited code review, and regardless of whether the change reaches any type of ecosystem consensus. Fortunately, Bitcoin is not such a delicate flower of a system that such a foolhardy attempt at modifying it will succeed. Not only have miners soundly rejected BIP110, but other voices throughout the developer, investor, influencer, and corporate landscape have spoken out against the changes.  In August, this particular attack against Bitcoin’s consensus rules will have made Bitcoin stronger through its failure, and the network will continue its steady rhythm of tick-tock, next block.

This post The Bitcoin Softfork That Tried to Police “Junk Data” — And Why It’s Already Failing first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Brandon Black.

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Bitwise Sees a Bottom in Bitcoin’s Worst Vibes Yet: ‘Darkest Before the Dawn’ 

Bitcoin closed the second quarter of 2026 mired in its deepest and longest downturn since the last bear market, according to Bitwise Asset Management’s newly released Q3 2026 Crypto Market Review. 

Yet the $9 billion crypto asset manager frames the pain as a setup rather than a collapse, arguing the industry has never been sturdier beneath the surface.

Bitcoin fell 13.4% in Q2 and is down 32.9% for the year, dropping below $60,000 in June for the first time since 2024 and landing roughly 52% under its October peak of $126,080. That extends what Bitwise calls “crypto winter” to nine months and marks the third straight quarter of negative returns for the broader Bitwise 10 Large Cap Crypto Index, its longest losing streak since 2022. 

Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan does not sugarcoat it, writing that “the vibes in crypto are among the worst I’ve seen in my eight years in this industry.”

Even so, bitcoin held up far better than most of its peers. Its 32.9% year-to-date decline was the shallowest drawdown among major large-cap tokens, easily beating Ethereum’s 46.9% slide, Solana’s 40.6% and Cardano’s 56.5%. 

Bitcoin now commands a 64.2% share of the roughly $1.88 trillion total crypto market and carries a 77.4% weight inside the Bitwise 10 index, cementing its status as the sector’s relative safe haven even in a broad selloff.

Bitcoin ETF outflows hit a record

The quarter’s most jarring statistic came from the exchange-traded product complex that has anchored bitcoin’s institutional era. U.S. spot bitcoin ETPs bled $4.9 billion in Q2, their worst quarter since launching in January 2024, according to Bitwise. 

Assets under management still stand at $72.4 billion, with $53.4 billion in cumulative net flows since inception, but the reversal underscored how quickly professional sentiment can sour. 

Filings show investment advisors hold about 43% of professionally owned ETP shares and hedge fund managers another 28%, with Jane Street ($1.8 billion) and Millennium ($1.0 billion) the largest reported holders.

Structural demand nonetheless continued to outstrip new issuance. Bitwise noted in their report that spot ETPs and public companies have together bought roughly 3.6 times the bitcoin mined since the ETFs debuted — about 1.55 million BTC of demand against just 455,416 BTC of new supply.

Treasury companies keep buying, but Strategy blinks

Public-company bitcoin treasuries grew to 1.28 million BTC, up 11.3% quarter over quarter and equal to 6.11% of the 21 million cap, even as the number of firms holding bitcoin slipped by three to 184. Companies added 130,467 BTC in Q2. Strategy remains the runaway leader at 846,842 BTC, trailed by XXI (43,514), Metaplanet (40,177), MARA Holdings (35,303) and Bitcoin Standard Treasury Company (30,021).

The most symbolically loaded move belonged to Strategy, which sold bitcoin for the first time since 2022 — offloading $218 million late in the quarter to fund dividend obligations while keeping holdings valued at $52.3 billion and a $2.55 billion cash reserve. Falling prices punished the equity harshly: Strategy’s stock (MSTR) dropped 30.3% in Q2 and 42.8% year to date, making it one of the worst performers among crypto equities.

The report also touched on several developments that are reshaping bitcoin’s market plumbing. The CFTC approved the first bitcoin perpetual futures at a U.S.-regulated exchange, Kalshi, pulling crypto’s dominant derivative onshore. 

Charles Schwab launched retail spot BTC trading, and E*Trade extended access to its 8.6 million users. On the regulatory front, the market-structure CLARITY Act stalled in the Senate over ethics provisions, with prediction markets pricing its 2026 passage odds at just around 20%, down from 75% in May. 

Bitwise argues that if CLARITY passes it would likely mark the bottom, and if it fails the industry keeps building under friendly regulators.

Hougan’s core argument is one of cycle-over-cycle progress. Bitcoin’s seasonality data offers modest near-term hope, with July historically averaging a 10.7% gain. 

And the firm’s portfolio work still shows a 5% bitcoin allocation adding to a traditional 60/40 mix in 100% of three-year rolling windows since 2014.

“The market is quoting bear-market prices on an industry that is twice the size it was at the last cycle’s bottom,” Hougan writes — a foundation, he says, that “determines what grows in the spring.”

Bitcoin is trading below $62,000 today.

This post Bitwise Sees a Bottom in Bitcoin’s Worst Vibes Yet: ‘Darkest Before the Dawn’  first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

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Strive (ASST) Adds 18 Bitcoin, Pushing Treasury to 19,900 BTC

Strive, Inc. (Nasdaq: ASST) bought 18 bitcoin last week, a modest addition that lifted the Dallas-based company’s treasury to 19,900 coins, according to an 8-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday.

The purchases ran from July 6 through July 10 at an average price of about $64,028 per bitcoin, including fees and expenses, for a total of some $1.2 million. The buy is small next to Strive’s earlier moves this year, and it tracks a bitcoin price that has fallen well below the levels the firm paid in prior rounds.

Alongside the purchase, Strive reported cash and cash equivalents of $154.1 million as of July 10, up $700,000 from July 2. The company still holds 505,000 shares of Strategy’s Variable Rate Series A Perpetual Stretch Preferred Stock, known as STRC, with a fair value of $44.2 million, down $202,000 over the same stretch. 

Its own preferred instrument, the Variable Rate Series A Perpetual Preferred Stock that trades as SATA, remains at 7.83 million shares outstanding.

Strive’s jump from an asset manager to treasury company

Strive traces its bitcoin strategy to a fast run of moves that began last year. Vivek Ramaswamy and Anson Frericks founded Strive Asset Management in 2022, and in 2025 the firm went public through a reverse merger with Asset Entities, taking the ASST ticker and reframing itself as the first public asset-management bitcoin treasury company. Its stated aim is to accumulate bitcoin and outperform the asset over the long run.

The accumulation came in bursts. Strive bought 1,567 bitcoin in late 2025 at an average of $103,315 and funded the effort through preferred-stock offerings. In January 2026, it added 123 more at $91,561 and won Semler Scientific shareholder approval for an all-stock acquisition that would bring about 5,048 bitcoin onto its balance sheet. 

The combined company would hold close to 12,800 coins at that time, a total that would rank among the largest corporate holders and place it ahead of names such as Tesla and Trump Media. By May 1, Strive’s own treasury had reached 15,000 bitcoin.

A smaller step in a lower market

Monday’s filing shows a different pace. An 18-coin purchase at $64,028 stands in contrast to the six-figure prices Strive paid a few months ago, a gap that reflects a broad decline in bitcoin through the first half of the year.

The measured addition, paired with a cash balance that held near $154 million, points to a company adding to its position at a slower cadence while it works through the Semler deal.

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Circle (CRCL) Wins Final OCC Approval for National Trust Bank

Circle Internet Group secured final approval from the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency today, to establish a national trust bank, a milestone that sent the stablecoin issuer’s shares higher and deepened its ties to the federal banking system.

The regulator cleared Circle to charter First National Digital Currency Bank, N.A., which will operate under the name Circle National Trust. 

The company, which trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker CRCL, said the charter places the new entity under direct federal oversight by the OCC, the primary supervisor for national banks and national trust banks.

Circle National Trust will provide fiduciary custody services for digital assets held by Circle and its affiliates. Under the business plan the OCC approved, the bank could extend custody services to a limited set of institutional customers, with a focus on banks and regulated derivatives organizations. 

The charter opens a path for the bank to manage the reserve backing USDC, the largest regulated stablecoin, which would bring that multibillion-dollar pool under federal supervision.

National trust banks differ from traditional lenders. They safeguard client assets and provide fiduciary services, and they do not take deposits or issue loans. The structure aligns its digital-asset infrastructure with a long-standing model for holding client assets under strict fiduciary standards.

“OCC approval to establish Circle National Trust marks a defining step in bringing blockchain technology and digital assets into the core of the U.S. financial system,” said Jeremy Allaire, co-founder, chairman, and chief executive of Circle. He said federal oversight of the trust bank “sets a new standard for transparency, governance, and scale” and unlocks a phase of adoption in which large financial institutions can build on public blockchains with confidence.

Investors welcomed the decision. CRCL shares climbed as much as 14% on the day of the announcement, a rebound from a three-month low. Other crypto-linked names, including Coinbase and Strategy, posted gains near 5% this morning as bitcoin bounced.

CRCL shares have since settled to 5% gains.

Circle’s federal framework

The approval caps a process that began when Circle filed its application on June 30, 2025. The OCC granted conditional approval in December 2025, alongside peers such as Ripple, BitGo, Fidelity Digital Assets, and Paxos. 

The final decision arrives as the GENIUS Act, the federal stablecoin law enacted in July 2025, moves toward full implementation in early 2027. 

That statute requires OCC supervision of large stablecoin issuers, and the trust charter positions Circle to meet the mandate while bringing USDC reserves into a federal framework.

Circle has built a record of regulatory engagement across markets. It received a BitLicense from New York in 2015, became the first global stablecoin issuer to comply with the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets framework in 2024, and holds licenses in the United Kingdom, Singapore, Bermuda, and Abu Dhabi.

The charter strengthens USDC’s role as regulated digital-dollar infrastructure for payments, settlement, and capital markets, Circle said.

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Bitcoin is “A Screaming Buy”: Standard Chartered Backs $100,000 Target, Shrugs Off Strategy (MSTR) Sell-Off

Standard Chartered maintained its end-2026 Bitcoin price forecast of $100,000 in a note to investors on Friday, arguing that the recent weakness reflects a failure by Strategy to explain a strategic shift rather than any deterioration in the company’s balance sheet.

Geoffrey Kendrick, the bank’s global head of digital assets research, wrote that Strategy — the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin, with 843,775 coins, more than 4% of the 21 million that will ever exist — “appears to be pivoting from its ‘never sell Bitcoin’ mantra to a more complex approach.” 

Clear communication of that pivot, he wrote, will determine how fast the pressure on BTC lifts.

Between 2020 and mid-2025, Strategy’s mNAV — enterprise value divided by the value of its Bitcoin — traded above 1.0. That premium lets the company issue shares, buy Bitcoin, and grow its value by more than the value of the new stock. Convincing the market it would never sell was the load-bearing part of the model.

With mNAV near 1.0, that arithmetic no longer works. Kendrick said Strategy is pivoting toward holding Bitcoin as backing for STRC, its perpetual preferred stock, which functions as a credit product.

The STRC feedback loop

STRC pays a 12% annual dividend, settled twice a month in cash, with the rate reset each month to keep the security near its $100 par value. It has about $10 billion notional outstanding, the largest of the instruments Strategy has deployed.

A negative feedback loop took hold once STRC broke from par, hitting an intraday low of $71.25 on June 26. The divergence began after the June 1 disclosure that Strategy had sold 32 BTC the prior week. STRC still trades near $90, according to Standard Chartered. The USD reserve for STRC dividends stands at $2.55 billion, or 17.4 months of coverage.

Bitcoin is a ‘screaming buy’

The problem with “never sell,” Kendrick argued, is that it constrains how Bitcoin gets perceived. Strategy has announced a monetization program that lets it sell BTC from time to time, including up to $1.25 billion in proceeds for the reserve.

Given its Bitcoin backing, STRC is over-collateralized and should trade back toward $100, the note said. Kendrick compared the mechanism to a central bank promising to do “whatever it takes” and, through credibility, never having to act. 

Effective signaling, he wrote, should remove the need for Strategy to sell any Bitcoin. Kendrick treats the episode as noise rather than a signal about BTC’s medium-term direction. At $64,000, he calls the coin “a screaming buy.”

Strategy sold 3,588 BTC for about $216 million last week, its largest disposal to date, using the proceeds to fund preferred stock distributions and refill the reserve. JPMorgan analysts said the formal sale policy introduces “avoidable two-way risk” by making Strategy both buyer and seller. 

Strategy’s stock trades near $98 on Thursday. BTC traded above $64,400 on Friday.

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New Hampshire Council Rejects $100 Million Bitcoin-Backed Bond

The New Hampshire Executive Council rejected a plan on Wednesday to authorize a $100 million bond backed by Bitcoin, killing a proposal that state officials had cast as a first-in-the-nation bid to draw digital finance to the Granite State.

The New Hampshire councilors voted 3-2 against it, according to reporting from The Boston Globe.

The New Hampshire Business Finance Authority and Governor Kelly Ayotte had promoted the bond as “groundbreaking” and “historic.” The deal would have stood as the world’s first Bitcoin-backed municipal bond. The plan had cleared Moody’s ratings and reached the Executive Council for its final vote before issuance.

The council did not share that enthusiasm. Karen Liot Hill, the lone Democrat, framed her opposition as caution rather than hostility. 

“I’m not opposed to Bitcoin or cryptocurrency in general,” she told The Boston Globe. “But I do think that we are being asked as a state to lend a kind of legitimacy to a financial transaction, which is from … an emerging asset class that has been shown to be very volatile.”

Bitcoin is ‘emerged’

James Key-Wallace, executive director of the Business Finance Authority, disputed the framing. “The only quibble I would have is … I wouldn’t call them ’emerging,’” he said. “They’ve ’emerged.’ They’re here.”

Key-Wallace stressed that the bond carried zero risk for New Hampshire taxpayers. The loan agreement would create a conduit between private investors and a private borrower, with cryptocurrency as collateral. 

The state would owe nothing, even in a Bitcoin crash. Should Bitcoin climb across the three-year term, the authority could collect millions in fees for small business, child care, housing, and economic development programs. He said the deal could lead to “several more.”

Ayotte, who last year signed a law giving the state treasurer discretion to invest in Bitcoin and made New Hampshire the first state to pass a strategic Bitcoin reserve into law, defended the value of moving first. 

“I think it’s something that we really need to think about,” she said, “because our state continues to thrive when we are continuing to be innovative — and especially if we can do so in a way that protects the taxpayers.”

Liot Hill moved to table the proposal, but no colleague seconded the motion, a silence that sent the plan to its final vote. Janet Stevens and David Wheeler joined her in opposition. Joseph Kenney and John Stephen voted in favor.

Key-Wallace said his team remains excited about the state’s role in the digital asset economy, and he offered to present the idea to the council in the future.

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CFTC Chair Says Clarity Act Is ‘So Close’ As August Deadline Nears

Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Michael Selig said the Clarity Act remains within reach, days after Congress missed its July 4 target to pass the crypto market-structure bill. “We’re so close. We have to get this done,” Selig told Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo. 

Some analysts give the measure even odds of passage before the August 7 recess.

The bill would divide oversight of digital assets between the CFTC and the Securities and Exchange Commission, a split the industry has sought for years. The House passed the legislation last summer. The Senate has yet to hold a floor vote.

Selig, a Trump appointee confirmed in December, backed the Clarity Act effort as a matter of national competitiveness. He backed the effort as a matter of national competitiveness. 

“It’s critical that we have a federal standard for crypto assets,” he said, pointing to a patchwork of state laws that, in his account, has hurt U.S. business. He described the goal as certainty, clarity, and consumer protection, and called the measure bipartisan. “We have to get it across the line,” he said.

Asked about the holdup, Selig pointed to scope. Democrats have pressed for ethics language addressing President Trump, his family, and their crypto ventures, a demand he characterized as a distraction. 

“There’s a little bit of creep into ethics and other issues, and they’re just derailing the real opportunity to have a bipartisan bill,” he said. 

Democrats have framed the Clarity Act provisions as consumer protection. The bill has also drawn disputes over illicit-finance rules and over a reopened piece of the GENIUS Act, the stablecoin law, that concerns whether exchanges may pay yield on stablecoin balances.

Senator Cynthia Lummis, who leads the Senate Banking Committee’s digital assets subcommittee, has said negotiators aim to release bill text and hold a vote this month.

The committee advanced the measure in a 15-9 vote, with two Democrats joining Republicans. Lawmakers have warned that a failure to act before the recess could delay the next opening for years.

Selig on prediction markets, Iran beyond Clarity Act

Bartiromo also asked Selig about prediction markets, where Kalshi and Polymarket processed a combined $24 billion in volume over the past year.

Selig said the CFTC has proposed rules for the sector and has sued nine states in a fight over jurisdiction. On markets during the U.S. strikes on Iran near the Strait of Hormuz, he said crypto held its ground and served as a hedge, while the agency worked to keep oil and derivatives markets orderly.

For now, the Clarity Act’s fate rests on released text, a Senate vote, and a calendar that leaves a few weeks before the August recess.

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Schwab Strategist Backs Strategy’s STRC Playbook Amid Bitcoin Weakness

Strategy remains under pressure as Bitcoin hovers near $60,000, but recent capital moves have bought the company time, according to Jim Ferraioli, director of crypto research and strategy at the Schwab Center for Financial Research.

Speaking on Morning Trade Live at the New York Stock Exchange, Ferraioli said the firm led by Michael Saylor faces scrutiny while the price of Bitcoin sits 50% below its peak. Strategy, the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin, has funded much of its buying through preferred equity, including its variable-rate Stretch preferred stock, known as STRC.

That product fell near $70 from its $100 par value before a rebound. To defend the peg, Strategy raised the STRC dividend to 12% and authorized $2 billion in buybacks while unlocking further Bitcoin sales. The stock has since started climbing back toward par. 

“The market is supportive of these actions,” Ferraioli said, describing the response as a check on fears of cascading liquidations.

The shift marks a change in tone for a company known for a “never sell” stance. 

“We went from never sell Bitcoin to strategically sell Bitcoin,” Ferraioli said, acknowledging fair criticism. He cautioned that a lower multiple could limit Strategy’s capacity to issue shares and buy more Bitcoin in the second half of the year. 

Schwab’s perspective on Bitcoin’s slump

Ferraioli weighed in on a market bump that followed comments from President Trump, who signaled openness to holding Bitcoin in the new Trump Accounts savings program. 

Ferraioli read the move as a sign of one more potential class of buyer, alongside mainstream investors who entered through spot ETFs. 

“The crypto market loves narratives,” he said, calling the asset momentum-driven.

On correlations, Ferraioli described Bitcoin as a low-correlation asset, a trait he traced to the four-year halving that cuts new supply. Past ties to tech stocks have broken down, and a historic inverse relationship with the dollar has wavered; Bitcoin has rallied during periods of dollar strength this year. 

“Starting points matter,” he said, noting that Bitcoin rose during the Iran conflict as the dollar gained.

He addressed the dollar-yen rate, which trades near 40-year lows. A stronger yen could unwind the carry trade, in which investors sell the yen to buy growth assets. Ferraioli framed a yen rebound as a possible headwind for risk assets, though not a primary near-term risk for Bitcoin.

On the debasement trade, Ferraioli pushed back on the idea that last year’s gold rally, set against a halving of Bitcoin’s market cap, disproved the store-of-value case. 

He attributed the gold move to supply constraints and momentum rather than fiscal fear. The federal budget deficit has narrowed from 8-9% of GDP to 5%, near the median across Bitcoin’s life.

“It’s not an endorsement of the fiscal health,” he said, “but it helps put that narrative in check.”

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Kraken Seeks Final Judgment After $22 Million Award Against Former Auditor

Payward, the parent company of the cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, has asked the Delaware Court of Chancery to enter a final judgment against its former auditor, Mazars USA, after an arbitrator awarded the firm $22 million. 

The exchange disclosed the request on July 7 through an open letter from co-CEO Arjun Sethi and a series of posts from CEO Dave Ripley.

The dispute traces to December 2023, when Mazars withdrew from Kraken’s 2022 audit days before its completion. Mazars had audited Kraken for three prior years and issued two clean opinions, according to the company. 

In writing, Sethi said, the auditor confirmed it had no disagreement with management, no concerns about the firm’s integrity, and no findings of fraud.

Mazars attributed its resignation to legal developments, among them a complaint the Securities and Exchange Commission had filed against Kraken weeks before.

That SEC complaint was dismissed with prejudice, with no penalties and no admission of wrongdoing. Kraken said the abandoned audit cost it years and millions of dollars in legal fees to secure new auditors and reassure banks, regulators, and counterparties. The exchange said it has received a clean audit in each year that followed.

The letters come as Kraken pursues a full European banking license, reportedly through Lithuania, a move that would allow the company to offer traditional banking services across the European Economic Area and potentially become the first cryptocurrency exchange to secure a full European bank license, according to CoinDesk reporting. 

The effort is part of Kraken’s broader regulatory strategy as it expands beyond crypto into mainstream financial services, building on milestones including U.S. Federal Reserve payment access and authorization in the UAE.

Operation Chokepoint 2.0

Sethi placed the episode within what critics call Operation Chokepoint 2.0, a term for what they describe as a coordinated effort by regulators to cut lawful crypto firms off from banking and other services. In December 2022, a year before quitting the Kraken audit, Mazars Group halted proof-of-reserves work for the crypto sector and removed those reports from its website.

The letter cited a chain of actions from 2022 and 2023. On January 3, 2023, the Federal Reserve, FDIC, and OCC issued a joint statement warning that crypto business models raised safety and soundness concerns for banks. 

Documents released after a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit showed the FDIC sent at least 25 letters to two dozen banks urging them to pause or refrain from expanding crypto activity. The SEC’s SAB 121 accounting guidance required public companies holding crypto to record those assets on their balance sheets, a step that made custody uneconomical for banks. 

The Federal Reserve denied a master account to Custodia, a Wyoming bank built for digital assets. And in March 2023, the payment networks run by Silvergate and Signature shut down within days of each other.

As the debanking era ends, Kraken demands rules 

Much of that framework has come undone. The SEC rescinded SAB 121, the banking regulators withdrew the joint statement, and a House committee report concluded that regulators used vague rules and informal pressure to push banks away from lawful digital asset firms. 

Sethi also recounted the experience of Kraken founder Jesse Powell, who started the exchange in 2011. In March 2023, federal agents raided Powell’s home and seized his devices in connection with a dispute involving a nonprofit unrelated to Kraken. 

After two years, the government closed the investigation, returned the devices, and brought no charges. Powell handed the chief executive role to Ripley, and Sethi joined Ripley in leading the company.

The letter closed with a call for Congress to pass the CLARITY Act, which would establish market-structure rules for digital assets, dividing oversight between the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the SEC and adding protections for software developers. 

The House passed the bill in July 2025 by a vote of 294 to 134, with 78 Democrats in support, and the Senate Banking Committee advanced its version in May. 

Sethi contrasted the U.S. timeline with the European Union, where the MiCA framework took effect across member states.

This post Kraken Seeks Final Judgment After $22 Million Award Against Former Auditor first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

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Trump-Backed American Bitcoin (ABTC) Pushes Treasury Past 8,000 BTC

American Bitcoin Corp (Nasdaq: ABTC) has moved its treasury past 8,000 bitcoin, the company said. The total marks a climb from about 5,401 BTC at the end of 2025, a gain of close to 50% across six months.

The company, a majority-owned subsidiary of Hut 8 Corp and backed by the Trump family, said its bitcoin reserve and its bitcoin-per-share have grown close to threefold since its Nasdaq debut. Co-founder Eric Trump has framed the growth as disciplined and large in scale.

American Bitcoin builds its stack through two channels: mining production and treasury purchases. In the first quarter of 2026, the firm mined 817 BTC and added 1,620 BTC to its reserve, a rise of about 30 percent in three months. That pace has carried into the summer.

Mining capacity has grown to match the treasury ambitions. In March, the company deployed 11,298 ASIC miners at its site in Drumheller, Alberta, a move that lifted capacity by about 12 percent and added 3.05 EH/s. The cost to mine a single bitcoin fell to about $36,200 in the first quarter, a drop of 23 percent from $46,900 in the prior quarter.

The financial picture remains mixed. American Bitcoin reported a net loss of $81.8 million for the first quarter on revenue of $62.1 million, a result that reflects a wider crypto market decline and the heavy spending behind its expansion.

American Bitcoin’s reverse stock split

The company also reshaped its share structure. A 1-for-15 reverse stock split took effect at 5:00 p.m. on July 2, with shares trading on a split-adjusted basis from July 6. Shareholders approved the measure at the annual meeting on June 22.

The strategy sets American Bitcoin apart from a segment of the mining industry that has shifted resources toward artificial-intelligence data centers. Rather than pivot, the firm has doubled down on bitcoin mining and treasury accumulation, a bet that ties its fortunes to the price of the asset it collects.

At more than 8,000 BTC, American Bitcoin ranks among the larger corporate holders of the asset, and its stack has, at points, surpassed that of Galaxy Digital. 

The company positions itself as a pure-play bitcoin accumulation platform, a structure that gives public investors exposure to both mining output and a growing reserve.

Whether the model rewards shareholders depends on the path of bitcoin and the discipline of the company’s spending. For the moment, the treasury keeps its climb.

Shares of ABTC were up 7% at time of writing. 

This post Trump-Backed American Bitcoin (ABTC) Pushes Treasury Past 8,000 BTC first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

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President Trump Signals Openness to Bitcoin in Trump Accounts, Calls Himself ‘a Big Fan of Crypto’

President Donald Trump said earlier today that Bitcoin could one day play a role in the new Trump Accounts savings program, telling reporters that “something could happen” when asked whether the accounts might hold the cryptocurrency.

Trump made the comments Monday during an Oval Office ceremony marking the launch of Trump Accounts. In a first-of-its-kind event, he rang the opening bells for both the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq from the Oval Office, a joint bell-ringing that had never been conducted from the White House. 

He was joined by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Paul Atkins, leaders of the NYSE and Nasdaq, and technology executive Michael Dell and his wife, Susan, who pledged more than $6 billion to supplement the accounts. 

What Trump said about bitcoin

Pressed on whether there were plans to add Bitcoin to the accounts, Trump did not commit to a timeline but used the moment to describe his shift toward digital assets. 

“Well, I’m a big crypto. I’ve become a big crypto guy only for one reason,” he said. “If we don’t have it, China is going to have it, and they would like to have it. But now they’re not even trying that hard because we’ve taken over crypto, but I’m a fan.”

Trump said his interest developed over time. “I wasn’t initially. I didn’t know much about it, but for some of my first term I wasn’t really, I wasn’t much involved, but I’d watch,” he said. 

He credited the sector’s scale and its appeal to voters for drawing him in: “I realized there are a lot of people love crypto and even me as a businessman, I’d see a lot of money starting to come in with Bitcoin.” 

He said Bitcoin was being used “at levels that nobody…understands really” and repeated his framing of competition with China.

The president also veered into other subjects. He said the United States leads China in artificial intelligence, tying that lead to his approach on energy permitting for data centers while criticizing wind power. He also confirmed he had spoken with FIFA President Gianni Infantino to seek a review of U.S. forward Folarin Balogun’s red card suspension. FIFA’s independent board reversed the ban on Sunday, a decision that drew objections from Belgium and other figures in the sport. Belgium has appealed the reversal.

What Trump Accounts are

Trump Accounts, created under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that Trump signed in 2025 and referred to in Treasury guidance as 530A accounts, launched July 4, 2026. Each is a tax-advantaged investment account for a child. 

On July 4, the government deposited one-time $1,000 seed contributions into accounts for more than 500,000 children. Children born between January 1, 2025, and December 31, 2028, who are U.S. citizens qualify for that federal deposit, and families can contribute up to $5,000 a year. Funds are locked until age 18, when the account converts to a traditional individual retirement account.

Trump’s record on crypto

The remarks fit a pattern from Trump’s second term. In March 2025, he signed an executive order establishing a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and a U.S. Digital Asset Stockpile, directing that Bitcoin held through forfeiture be retained rather than sold; the government held more than 207,000 Bitcoin at the time, valued near $17 billion. 

In July 2025, he signed the GENIUS Act, the first major federal crypto law, setting a framework for payment stablecoins. His administration has eased Biden-era enforcement at the Justice Department and SEC and rolled back restrictions on banks’ crypto activities. A broader market-structure bill, the CLARITY Act, remains in Congress.

This post President Trump Signals Openness to Bitcoin in Trump Accounts, Calls Himself ‘a Big Fan of Crypto’ first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

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Wavespace Launches MiCA-Compliant Self-Custodial Bitcoin Debit Card Powered by Lightning and NWC

Wavespace, a Bitcoin neobank serving the Eurozone, has announced MiCA compliance of its ‘self-custodial’ debit card. The young fintech company is at the cutting edge of Bitcoin payments technology in Europe, with support for the Lightning Network, and auto DCA to self-custody. 

Debit cards in the Bitcoin and broader crypto industry have traditionally worked by preloading custodial accounts with bitcoin or stablecoins. The process of preloading was usually on-chain, taking time to settle and requiring manual input from the user to send from self-custody wallets or cold storage. If the preloaded balance ran out on the card, spending would not be possible. 

Wavespace’s self-custody debit card solves these problems with a novel Bitcoin technology called Nostr Wallet Connect, or NWC for short. This protocol, documented in NIP-47, allows users to connect a service like this debit card to a self-hosted Lightning node. The user sets a minimum balance, say $200 and every time the user spends from the card via the VISA network, Wavespace pulls sats from the user’s self-custodial wallet to top up the card. This process minimizes custodial exchange risk while maximizing user exposure to the asset and automating away the friction to spend bitcoin.

NWC is a technology developed by the Nostr ecosystem, a high-tech niche within the Bitcoin industry that is branching out into social media and other communication protocols.  

The Wavespace Neobank

As a high-tech neobank, Wavespace gives users a personal IBAN account, which they can send fiat to, to purchase Bitcoin. Their automated DCA services can be set to withdraw bitcoin upon purchase to a selected Bitcoin address. 

The company is MiCA compliant, making it one of the few surviving Bitcoin exchanges in Europe, as the complicated crypto regulations came online.

On the privacy front, the deep Lightning network integration of Wavespace lets user get access to the banking system in a clear and compliant manner, without exposing all their payment data on the Bitcoin blockchain. Since Lightning payments are off-chain, there is no single public record that leaks user data; instead, transactions move through payment channels between various user services, leaving no obvious public trace. The result is a growing compromise between the high privacy, cypherpunk values that created the Bitcoin and crypto industry, while also unlocking access to the legacy financial system, and compliant integration with regulation-heavy areas like Europe. 

In an interview with Bitcoin Magazine, Eivydas Račkauskas, Chief Orange Pill Giver at Wavespace, said that 70% of the payments made on the platform use the Lightning Network and that the company is looking into the ARK protocol for further self-custody-oriented payments integrations. He also revealed that the company is integrated with Lightspark and is ready for an expansion into the USA, though he did not reveal further details on the matter. 

Wavespace has been almost entirely bootstrapped and self-funded, according to Račkauskas, except for an early Relai angel investor who supported them in 2025. They are currently in the middle of another fundraising round.  

This post Wavespace Launches MiCA-Compliant Self-Custodial Bitcoin Debit Card Powered by Lightning and NWC first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Juan Galt.

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FBI Director Kash Patel Did Not Disclose Six-Figure Strategy (MSTR) Stake: Report

FBI Director Kash Patel disclosed a six-figure investment in Strategy (MSTR), the world’s largest corporate holder of Bitcoin, more than six months past the deadline set by federal ethics law, according to a report from NOTUS. The lapse has reopened a fight over stock trading by senior government officials and raised questions about a potential conflict of interest.

Patel purchased between $100,001 and $250,000 in shares of Strategy on November 21, 2025. He did not report the trade to federal regulators until May 26, 2026, a gap of more than 180 days. The Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act requires senior executive-branch officials to disclose individual stock trades over $1,000 within 45 days of the transaction.

In his May 26 letter to the Office of Government Ethics, Patel said the trade had been “inadvertently omitted” from a prior filing. Two days later, Deputy Assistant Attorney General William Taylor attributed the omission to a miscommunication, and an FBI official told NOTUS the late reporting was “not realized and unintentional.” 

First-time STOCK Act violators face a $200 fine. The Department of Justice, which would issue or waive the penalty, has not fined Patel. The bureau said the corrected filing was reviewed and approved by a DOJ ethics official.

Why Patel’s stock omission is drawing attention

Strategy, the firm led by Michael Saylor, pioneered the corporate Bitcoin-treasury model and holds more than 760,000 BTC. The stock functions as a proxy for the price of Bitcoin, which makes it one of the most direct routes to a Bitcoin bet through a brokerage account. Strategy’s shares have lost about half their value since the date of Patel’s purchase.

The identity of the company is the crux of the concern. The FBI, under Patel, plays a central role in cryptocurrency enforcement, and Patel has promoted that record.

In a June 19 post on X, he warned crypto fraudsters that “this FBI will find you, and we will bring you to justice.” Weeks before his purchase, he had touted a case that seized roughly $15 billion 

Strategy has done millions of dollars in business with the Justice Department, of which the FBI is a part, along with the Departments of Health and Human Services, Defense, and State, over the past decade, according to the report.

Taylor maintained that Patel’s stake does not create a conflict of interest with his oversight of the bureau.

Patel is not an outlier. Vice President JD Vance disclosed up to $500,000 in Bitcoin, and President Trump and his sons reported more than $1 billion in crypto-related income last year. 

This post FBI Director Kash Patel Did Not Disclose Six-Figure Strategy (MSTR) Stake: Report first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

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