Blog Feed from https://bitcoinmagazine.com/ portal.

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin Price Surges Above $87,000 on Softer-Than-Expected Jobs Data

The price of bitcoin surged above $87,000 on Friday morning in New York, buoyed by constant exchange-traded fund flows and a jobs report showing that unemployment in the U.S. had ticked up. 

Bitcoin’s price recently stood at $85,990 after a 2% jump over a 24-hour period. Over the past week, it has also risen by more than 2%. 

Nonfarm payrolls increased 29,000 last month after a downward revision to the prior two months, Bureau of Labor Statistics data showed Friday. 

Weaker-than-expected jobs data can give a lift to riskier assets like bitcoin and stocks, whose prices tend to swing more sharply. 

A softer labor market typically means less consumer spending, which eases pressure on prices. That could make the Federal Reserve less inclined to keep raising interest rates to fight inflation.

Many economists and politicians have said the U.S. is in the midst of an affordability crisis, and the topic is a hot one ahead of the November midterm elections. 

The Federal Reserve’s new chair, Kevin Warsh, has said that prices in the world’s biggest economy are too high and that the central bank is fully focused on making life more affordable again. 

Bitcoin investors shrugged off the central bank’s interest rate hike in September, climbing on the news. 

The largest cryptocurrency started rallying in August on news that the U.S. Treasury Department said it would more than double the size of its government debt repurchases. The coin had its best run in three years and third best August ever.  

The coin’s price has benefited from the so-called debasement trade: when investors buy certain assets to hedge against currency being devalued. The dollar slid in value in August. 

It continued to have a good September, rising nearly 6% over a 30-day period. 

October has historically delivered good returns for bitcoin investors, with traders dubbing the phenomenon “Uptober.” 

This post Bitcoin Price Surges Above $87,000 on Softer-Than-Expected Jobs Data first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine – Read More

Bitcoin Magazine

Frank Holmes: They Will Print $100 Trillion – Why to Buy Bitcoin & Gold

Bitcoin miners already have the power, the land, and the substations that AI needs. Frank Holmes, executive chairman of HIVE Digital Technologies, explains why he calls Bitcoin mining a “tier one” data center, how GPUs that once mined Ethereum led HIVE into AI, and why he thinks the next wave of AI factories will be built on mining infrastructure from Paraguay to Canada.

Chapters:
0:00 Frank Holmes on HIVE: From Gold Investor to Bitcoin Miner to AI Compute
2:12 How ETFs Changed Bitcoin: From the Fear Trade to the Love Trade
4:20 The Binance $19 Billion Liquidation and the $350 Trillion Money Supply
5:45 Gamers, Younger Quants, and Why Bitcoin Will Keep Gaining Adoption
7:29 Covid’s $40 Trillion of Money Printing and the Global MMT Risk
9:24 China, Russia, and Why Bitcoin Is a Tier One Data Center
11:33 China’s Bitcoin Mining, $1.4 Trillion of Lending, and Central Banks Buying Gold
13:44 Paraguay’s Central Bank and Bitcoin Mining as an Export
14:57 Compute as a Commodity: Canada’s AI Push and Bitcoin Miners’ Power Advantage
20:34 Where to Find Frank Holmes’s Weekly Investor Alert Newsletter

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this show are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of BTC Inc., Bitcoin Magazine, or any affiliated entities. This content is provided for informational and educational purposes only and should not be construed as investment, legal, tax, or accounting advice. Nothing contained in this show constitutes a solicitation, recommendation, endorsement, or offer to buy or sell any securities or financial instruments. Viewers should consult their own advisors before making financial or business decisions.

This post Frank Holmes: They Will Print $100 Trillion – Why to Buy Bitcoin & Gold first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Patrick Green.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine – Read More

Bitcoin Magazine

Nico Lechuga: Bitcoin Will Revolutionize the $4T Private Equity Industry

Traditional private equity is always on a clock, says Nico Lechuga. Funds run seven to ten years, so businesses get flipped in three to five. Lechuga, a founding partner at Ego Death Capital and co-founder of ORANGE JUICE, explains how permanent capital and a Bitcoin treasury could give owner-operators another option.

Chapters:
0:00 Meet Nico Lechuga of ego death capital and ORANGE JUICE
0:31 Why Private Equity’s Fund Model Keeps Owners on a Clock
1:16 What Makes a Good Acquisition Target for a Permanent Holding Company
3:11 Bitcoin or Another Business: How Free Cash Flow Gets Allocated
4:33 Why Debt Is a Drag and How Permanent Capital Differs
7:23 Owner-Operators as Frontline Intelligence, and the Role of Roll-Ups
9:12 How to Tell a Real Bitcoin Business From a Pitch
11:30 Competing With MBA Search Funds for Small Businesses
12:29 Brand as an Edge: The People Behind ORANGE JUICE
13:34 Acquisition Currency and Crossing the Chasm

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this show are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of BTC Inc., Bitcoin Magazine, or any affiliated entities. This content is provided for informational and educational purposes only and should not be construed as investment, legal, tax, or accounting advice. Nothing contained in this show constitutes a solicitation, recommendation, endorsement, or offer to buy or sell any securities or financial instruments. Viewers should consult their own advisors before making financial or business decisions.

This post Nico Lechuga: Bitcoin Will Revolutionize the $4T Private Equity Industry first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Patrick Green.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine – Read More

Bitcoin Magazine

Darius Dale: Will Global Liquidity Send Bitcoin Higher in 2027?

Are we headed for a period of chop before a bigger move in Bitcoin? Darius Dale, founder of 42 Macro, says a decline in funding liquidity could mean near-term volatility, but that if liquidity comes back in 2027, which he sees as more likely than not, Bitcoin could resolve higher over the following 12 to 18 months. He also explains why Bitcoin deserves a portfolio allocation as a different exposure from stocks and gold.

Chapters:
0:00 Darius Dale on Who Benefits From Rising Treasury Yields
1:06 Why Higher Rates Haven’t Hit the Economy Yet: The AI Capex Boom
2:02 Default via Debasement and a Fed–Treasury Accord 2.0
4:30 Five Paths Out of the Debt Problem, and Only Three Are Acceptable
6:32 Risk Management, Asset Allocation, and Why No Bonds
8:22 Bitcoin Outlook: Near-Term Chop and the 2027 Liquidity Case
9:34 Bitcoin’s Role vs. Gold and Stocks, and Where Bond Yields Reach Fair Value
10:53 The “Wealth Pump” and Money in Politics
17:09 Why AI Is Too Big to Fail and What a Bust Would Look Like
19:11 Running for Office, Why He’s Not a Socialist, and Jackie Robinson

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this show are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of BTC Inc., Bitcoin Magazine, or any affiliated entities. This content is provided for informational and educational purposes only and should not be construed as investment, legal, tax, or accounting advice. Nothing contained in this show constitutes a solicitation, recommendation, endorsement, or offer to buy or sell any securities or financial instruments. Viewers should consult their own advisors before making financial or business decisions.

This post Darius Dale: Will Global Liquidity Send Bitcoin Higher in 2027? first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Patrick Green.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine – Read More

Bitcoin Magazine

UK Brings Crypto Under Full FCA Oversight for the First Time

The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority has opened applications for crypto firms to become authorized, bringing the sector under full regulation for the first time.

In a Wednesday announcement, the watchdog said companies can apply so that the crypto industry has “clarity and legitimacy.”

The UK is in the process of drafting a sweeping new crypto bill. The FCA finalized its regulatory framework for cryptoassets in June, and the regime is due to take effect in October 2027.  

“The UK’s new crypto regime will give consumers greater protections and firms a clear framework to operate in. Firms can now apply for authorisation and start preparing for regulation,” Dominic Cashman, director of authorisation at the FCA, said in a statement. 

The statement added that firms will have to demonstrate that they meet requirements covering consumer protection, customer-asset safeguarding, market integrity and financial resilience.

Britain is pushing ahead with digital asset legislation since last year recognizing bitcoin and other digital assets as property. The reform came from a 2023 recommendation by the Law Commission, which argued that digital assets did not fit neatly into existing legal categories.

Despite the FCA’s announcement, the UK currently is trailing behind Brussels and Washington with digital asset regulation. 

The EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation has applied to service providers since 30 December 2024. 

And the U.S. under President Donald Trump signed the GENIUS Act into law in July 2025, establishing a federal framework for dollar-backed tokens.

Despite lawmakers blocking landmark legislation the Clarity Act last month, U.S. regulators like the Securities and Exchange Commission have pushed ahead with rulemaking regardless. 

This post UK Brings Crypto Under Full FCA Oversight for the First Time first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine – Read More

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin Surges 40% in Its Best Quarter Since Late 2024

Bitcoin is having one of its best quarters ever — another indication that the biggest cryptocurrency is in a bull market. 

As noted by the The Kobeissi Letter this week, the price of bitcoin is now up close to 30% since August 19, when the U.S. Treasury announced it planned to more than double the size of its government debt repurchases.

Over the past quarter, the bitcoin price has surged by 40% — its best quarterly performance since Q4 2024. 

Bitcoin’s price recently stood at nearly $83,698, unmoved over a 24-hour period but up 6% over a 30-day period. 

The coin has benefited from news that the Treasury would try to lower bond yields — which have soared to highs not seen since the 2000s. 

Bitcoin has done well with lower long-term yields because it reduces the opportunity cost of holding non-yielding assets like bitcoin and gold, and generally supports risk-on sentiment. 

But despite the Treasury stepping in to try and tame the bond market, yields have continued to stay high. 

Bitcoin investors don’t seem that bothered. The asset is still doing well as the dollar continues to slip. The so-called debasement trade — where investors throw money at an asset to hedge against a currency losing its value — is hot again after total U.S. debt topped $40 trillion for the first time in July.  

The price of Bitcoin had been battered since notching a new all-time high of $126,080 in October, dropping by over 50%. Still, it has experienced the shallowest bear market — so far — in its history. 

CryptoQuant said in a report last week that bitcoin was back in a bull market after crossing above its 365-day moving average — the “definitive technical signal” that has marked the start of Bitcoin’s bull markets in past cycles.

The coin has shrugged off the Federal Reserve raising interest rates and lawmakers blockage of landmark crypto legislation, the Clarity Act. 

This post Bitcoin Surges 40% in Its Best Quarter Since Late 2024 first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine – Read More

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin Is More Than Just an Asset, Says TD Cowen

Investment bank TD Cowen has said that Bitcoin is more than an asset — and will be increasingly used as financial infrastructure to underpin institutional products.

Writing in a Tuesday note, TD Cowen said that after attending a BitcoinTreasuries Conference this week in New York, it noticed institutions were more than interested in just accumulating the leading cryptocurrency. 

The comments come as major banks around the world delve deeper into the technology that underpins Bitcoin, with firms offering — and using — crypto products for customers and to streamline their own services. 

“Bitcoin increasingly appears to be moving beyond its role as an investable asset and toward a broader role as financial infrastructure capable of supporting new capital-markets activity,” the report read. 

“In our view, the most interesting conversations were not necessarily about bitcoin itself, but about the ecosystem being built around it,” the report continued. 

It added that Bitcoin could be used in its next phase by “supporting capital markets infrastructure.” 

Nasdaq-listed Bitcoin treasury Strategy has long argued that the leading cryptocurrency will underpin other products in the financial sector. The company, which is the largest corporate holder of bitcoin, currently offers preferred stocks which pay investors dividends. 

TD Cowen said that bitcoin custody was becoming more institutional as “larger pools of capital enter the ecosystem.” 

U.S. and European banks have spoken about or started offering bitcoin custody services in recent years. 

BNY Mellon in 2022 became the first major U.S. bank to offer digital asset custody services. And this month, German multinational Deutsche Bank said it would debut a bitcoin custody service for European corporate and institutional clients later in 2026. 

“We believe these developments suggest that bitcoin is continuing to evolve from a standalone asset into a broader financial ecosystem capable of supporting increasingly sophisticated institutional participation,” TD Cowen added.

TD Cowen is a division of multinational TD Securities. 

This post Bitcoin Is More Than Just an Asset, Says TD Cowen first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine – Read More

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitget Customers Withdraw Over 4,000 Bitcoins in One Hour Following $388M Hack

Investors withdrew over 4,000 bitcoins worth over $334 million at today’s prices in one hour after hacked Bitget resumed customer withdrawals, the company’s CEO has said. 

Bitget CEO Gracy Chen told Bloomberg Television Tuesday that withdrawals from the exchange had since stabilized following the immediate bitcoin transactions.

Hackers last week made away with $388 million in crypto after targeting the Victoria, Seychelles-based exchange’s hot wallets. 

“The withdrawals actually stabilized a lot today,” Chen said. “Those hundreds of millions [in bitcoin withdrawals] actually most of them happen on the first hour of the withdrawal restart.”

In a Monday X post, Chen said that 9,585 orders of 4,098 bitcoins were processed. The exchange is allowing customers to withdraw funds in phases. 

Bitget froze withdrawals after blockchain experts flagged that money was leaving the exchange. Bitget later said the attack method in the incident was “highly consistent with known patterns of North Korean hacker organizations.” 

Chen said that no cold storage funds were touched but rather attackers had “exploited vulnerabilities from third-party products to steal internal credentials, then used those credentials to send fraudulent withdrawal commands that bypassed our risk controls.” 

She added that the company was using its own money to top up its protection fund after it dropped in size. Bloomberg reported that it was below $200 million after standing at $464 million before the hack. 

Bitget said that it was the first “security incident of this nature in eight years.” 

“The incident remains contained, and no further unauthorized transfers are possible,” the exchange noted. 

Bitget is the sixth biggest by trading volume, according to CoinGecko, processing in the past 24 hours $811 million in transactions. The exchange’s customers are mostly based in Asia. 

Attackers linked to North Korea’s government have long targeted crypto exchanges and are some of the most sophisticated cyber criminals out there. 

This post Bitget Customers Withdraw Over 4,000 Bitcoins in One Hour Following $388M Hack first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine – Read More

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitwise Head of Research: Sovereigns Selling Gold for Bitcoin | Ryan Rasmussen

When Bitcoin fell from $125K to $60K, not one of the 15 major institutions Bitwise interviewed sold, and many bought more. Ryan Rasmussen, head of research at Bitwise, breaks down the firm’s first institutional crypto adoption report, covering pensions, endowments, foundations, and sovereign wealth funds, and why they treat Bitcoin alongside gold as a hedge against debasement.

Chapters:
0:00 Ryan Rasmussen on Bitwise’s Institutional Crypto Adoption Report
0:49 Why No Institutions Sold Bitcoin During the Bear Market
1:45 Wells Fargo’s 2–3% Bitcoin Allocation and the Debasement Thesis
3:45 Fidelity, BlackRock, and 2–8% Bitcoin Allocations
4:50 How ETFs Made This Bitcoin Bear Market Shallower
6:24 $2.5B in Weekly ETF Inflows and a New Wave of Capital
7:06 Why Bitwise Believes the Bitcoin Bottom Was $60K
9:36 Why Institutions Hold Both Bitcoin and Gold
11:37 Sovereign Wealth Funds Selling Gold to Buy Bitcoin
15:17 Why Bitcoin Isn’t Correlated to Bonds, Gold, or Stocks

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this show are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of BTC Inc., Bitcoin Magazine, or any affiliated entities. This content is provided for informational and educational purposes only and should not be construed as investment, legal, tax, or accounting advice. Nothing contained in this show constitutes a solicitation, recommendation, endorsement, or offer to buy or sell any securities or financial instruments. Viewers should consult their own advisors before making financial or business decisions.

This post Bitwise Head of Research: Sovereigns Selling Gold for Bitcoin | Ryan Rasmussen first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Patrick Green.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine – Read More

Bitcoin Magazine

Tracy Shuchart: BTC & the Commodities Supercycle

Six million barrels a day of oil still aren’t getting through the Strait of Hormuz, and Tracy Shuchart says markets are still tightening. The NinjaTrader Live senior economist explains why lost GCC production won’t come back quickly, why crack spreads are signaling stress, and why the global refining shortage could get worse heading into winter.

Chapters:
0:00 Tracy Shuchart on the Strait of Hormuz and Tightening Oil Markets
1:07 Crack Spreads, Russian Refineries, and the Global Refining Shortage
2:50 Fall Refinery Maintenance and a Dire Winter Setup
3:22 Why a US Diesel Export Ban Would Backfire
4:45 Gold vs. Bitcoin: Why Hard Assets Are Holding Up
7:15 Venezuela’s Oil Discount and What It Means for US Refiners
8:31 Venezuela as a Geopolitical and Critical Minerals Play
9:28 AI Data Center Debt and Stress in the Bond Market
11:02 The Coming Copper Shortage and AI’s Supply Problem
12:41 Can the US Grow Its Way Through a Supply Shock?

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this show are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of BTC Inc., Bitcoin Magazine, or any affiliated entities. This content is provided for informational and educational purposes only and should not be construed as investment, legal, tax, or accounting advice. Nothing contained in this show constitutes a solicitation, recommendation, endorsement, or offer to buy or sell any securities or financial instruments. Viewers should consult their own advisors before making financial or business decisions.

This post Tracy Shuchart: BTC & the Commodities Supercycle first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Patrick Green.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine – Read More

Bitcoin Magazine

Belarus Approves the Country’s First Crypto Banks: Report 

The first crypto banks have opened in Belarus, according to reports, after the European country earlier this year created a legal framework for Bitcoin banks. 

While not yet named, the crypto banks will start operations after obtaining accreditation from the National Bank of Belarus, Russian news agency Interfax reported Monday. 

Back in January, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko signed Decree No. 19 “On Cryptobanks and Certain Issues of Control in the Field of Digital Tokens,” officially creating a legal framework for bitcoin and crypto banks in the country. 

“The practical outcome of today’s discussion is the launch and registration of the first crypto banks in the country’s history,” Interfax reported the press service of High-Tech Park saying in a statement.

High-Tech Park is a tax and legal regime in Belarus. Digital asset transactions are permitted in the zone. 

The statement added that banks would be regulated by Hi-Tech Park and the National Bank. 

Dmitry Kalechits, first deputy director of the High-Tech Park supervisory board secretariat, was quoted saying that the move would “improve the flow of the financial ecosystem” and drive foreign investment to Belarus. 

President Lukashenko last September backed the National Bank’s initiative to establish crypto banks in the country. 

The country has long pushed pro-crypto regulations. A 2017 decree legalised crypto mining and trading and temporarily exempted individuals’ crypto income from tax and declaration. That exemption was extended to 2025 and has since been narrowed, with income from foreign platforms now taxed at 13%.

Lukashenko has repeatedly promoted Bitcoin mining as a use for surplus electricity, and in 2025 the Mogilev region began preparing sites for mining farms with his backing.

This post Belarus Approves the Country’s First Crypto Banks: Report  first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine – Read More

Bitcoin Magazine

UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Blasts Nigel Farage’s ‘Bitcoin Account’ 

UK Chancellor of the Exchequer John Healey has appeared to slam Reform Party leader Nigel Farage’s use of Bitcoin. 

In a Monday speech, the finance minister said that Nigel Farage — a pro-crypto member of parliament — was “Liz Truss with a Bitcoin account.” 

Farage, who is leading the increasingly popular Reform Party, has come under fire recently for receiving donations from crypto entrepreneurs. Liz Truss was the UK’s shortest serving Prime Minister who was heavily criticised for her debt-fueled 2022 mini budget. 

“Nigel Farage — he wants you to think he’s a man of the people,” Healey said. “But when it comes to the economy, he’s Lizz Truss with a Bitcoin account.” 

Healey went on to say that his leading Labour Party would help the UK get ahead “through fiscal discipline, through good work, through strong industries.”

His comments were criticized by the Bitcoin community on X, who asked what a “Bitcoin account” even was. 

“Apparently ‘Bitcoin account’ is now a thing,” the Simply Bitcoin account wrote on X. “Incredible stuff from one of the people running Britain.”

Populist Farage has long been a pro-crypto politician. Since 2020, he has framed Bitcoin mainly as a question of personal freedom and opposition to state control of money.

Farage has also said that he was debanked by private British bank Coutts and that led him to develop more interest in digital assets. 

Just last year, he said at the Bitcoin 2025 Conference at Las Vegas that he’d slash crypto capital gains taxes and force the Bank of England to establish a Bitcoin reserve if elected as the next Prime Minister.  

Farage has come under fire this year for receiving millions of dollars in the form of crypto donations from tech entrepreneur and Tether investor Christopher Harborne, and Ben Delo, one of the founders of the now-closed BitMEX crypto exchange. 

The Metropolitan Police have opened an investigation into reports that Reform broke rules against overseas donations. Reform denies wrongdoing and says it will cooperate.

This post UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Blasts Nigel Farage’s ‘Bitcoin Account’  first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine – Read More

Bitcoin Magazine

Citi and Coinbase Working Together To Build Stablecoin Infrastructure for Businesses

Citigroup is working with America’s biggest crypto exchange, Coinbase, in its latest blockchain-based venture. 

The two companies said in a joint statement Monday that they were teaming up to allow Citi clients to move between regular money and stablecoins without having to build or manage both banking and crypto systems themselves.

The announcement comes as banks worldwide utilize Bitcoin’s underlying technology to speed up their processes and cater to crypto-hungry customers. 

Citi last month said it would allow institutional investors to custody both traditional assets and bitcoin within one framework, rather than needing separate systems, later this year. 

“Our clients operate in an increasingly fast-paced and complex global economy, and we’re focused on delivering the solutions they need,” said Debopama Sen, Head of Payments, Services, Citi. 

“Our goal is to build the next generation of payments infrastructure — one that is seamless, interoperable, and operates across both traditional and digital payments instruments and networks.”

There are two parts to the deal, the announcement said. Firstly, Coinbase Virtual Accounts, built on Citi’s banking-as-a-service platform, will give Coinbase’s payments customers bank-account-like features so they can accept, hold, send funds. Citi will provide the regulated banking backbone so that incoming fiat can be automatically converted to stablecoins. 

Secondly, Citi’s merchant platform, Spring by Citi, will use Coinbase’s infrastructure so that Citi’s enterprise clients can accept stablecoin payments at checkout. Coinbase will convert the stablecoins to fiat, and Citi settles the funds, so merchants never have to hold or manage crypto directly.

“Fintechs building on Coinbase have always needed a fast, compliant bridge between fiat and stablecoins, and Citi gives us that at scale,” Coinbase’s Head of Infrastructure Product, Alec Lovett, said. 

Coinbase and Citi first announced last year that they would partner to enhance digital asset payment capabilities for institutional clients.

Citi has a number of blockchain offerings, including Citi Token Services, which enables real-time cross-border payments using tokenized deposits.

The firm since last year has also been working with other top banks — including Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, and Bank of America — to explore issuing a stablecoin product.

This post Citi and Coinbase Working Together To Build Stablecoin Infrastructure for Businesses first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine – Read More

Bitcoin Magazine

Samourai Letter #7: Notes From The Inside

Dear Reader,

It has been many months since I last wrote you. Part of the reason for that is because I spent most of June and part of July in transit from FPC Morgantown to FCI McKean – a four hour drive away. For most of that time I had no access to pen, paper, stamps, or the rudimentary email system that I use to send these letters out. 

The other part of the reason why I haven’t written in so long is that once I did finally arrive I was so shell shocked from the entire ordeal that I needed time to decompress and process that month long trauma that is BOP transit. 

Six days after arriving at FCI McKean I finally put pen to paper to document the journey but the result was less of a letter and more of a trauma dump to help me process the absolute worst 30 days of my life. I decided to take a step back and give it some time before I sent out this letter. I have been slowly adapting to life here at McKean, and in good time I will tell you all about this place, but for this letter I want to go back to early June. 

I want to tackle the entire transit process and explain how what should have been a quick four hour drive turned into 30 days, two trans-continental flights, three multi-hour bus rides, a cell mate doing time for murder, and a cell mate who couldn’t stop shitting (I preferred the murderer). This letter will likely be published in two parts due to the length. Thank you for your continued reading and support. 

If you have time to read this article, you have time to sign the petition to free Samourai Wallet developers Keonne Rodriguez and William Hill. Every signature counts.

“I finally put pen to paper to document […] the absolute worst 30 days of my life.”

On June 5th I was told I would be transferred from FPC Morgantown for a drug and alcohol treatment program. Successfully completing the program (which takes about 9-10 months) rewards you with a year off your sentence, so it is seemingly well worth the hassle of moving to take it. 

For security reasons they do not tell you when you will be leaving or where you will be going. While being transferred in BOP custody you almost always are put on an airplane being piloted and operated by the US Marshalls to be taken to BOP transit hub in Oklahoma City. After a few days in Oklahoma you are put back on a plane and taken to your destination. From speaking with others I was told to expect 1-2 weeks of transit. 

I also heard that it costs around $10,000 per prisoner to be transited through Oklahoma. I figured that since I am classified as minimum security, spent close to two years on pre-trial release, self surrendered, and had no incident reports since being incarcerated I would be a good candidate for what is called a transfer furlough – where I would be responsible for transporting myself to my new institution at my own expense. 

I put in my official request for a transfer furlough on June 5th. On June 8th my request was denied without explanation, I would be going through transit, no way around it. 

On June 10th I was called to Receiving and Discharge (R&D) at 6:00 AM. Though I did not know it at the time I was about to embark on a month long fever dream through two different holding facilities, share cells with murderers, be locked down behind iron barred cells for 23 hours a day, and much more. 

Leaving through R&D is much the same as when I arrived. I was stripped, searched, issued a pair for ill fitting clothes (khaki elastic band trousers, a brown cotton shirt, threadbare boxers, socks that didn’t match, and a pair of slip on blue canvas shoes). 

I was put into a holding cell while the other inmates being transferred went through the same process. There were six of us transiting from Morgantown on that day. We were each lined up and called forward so that the officer could fasten shackles to our ankles and cuffs to our wrists. 

Once cuffed and shackled the officer wrapped a chain around our waist and attacked the handcuffs to them. The end result being that you could not lift your arms or hands much higher than your waist, and you could walk only in painful short shuffling steps. We were handed a brown paper bag with ‘breakfast’ in it (bread, peanut butter, bologna) and escorted to the waiting bus. 

“We were each lined up and called forward so that the officer could fasten shackles to our ankles and cuffs to our wrists.”

The bus was a cross between yellow school bus and a coach (think Greyhound or National Express) and already filled with inmates from other prisons in the area. There were guys from all security levels on the bus. Some guys serving 20 years coming from the “pen” (The US Penitentiary), some guys like me serving short sentences and going to a camp. 

The atmosphere was generally friendly on the bus, most of the USP guys were interested in what the camp was like and how much contraband like vapes and phones cost. At the front of the bus behind a metal grate were the driver and three heavily armed officers. They all wore stab vests and carried handguns and long guns. 

As we departed Morgantown I was excited to watch the scenery go by. This was the first taste of the outside world I had in 6 months. I took in all the sights. The trailer park, the run down gas station, the XXX store, it all was captivating. After about an hour of driving the bus suddenly exited the highway and stopped on the side of a small road. After 20 minutes idling I noticed one of the officers walking back to the bus with a bag of biscuits from Tudor’s Biscuit World – a West Virginia institution. 

We remained on the side of the road as each officer one by one went and bought breakfast, an endeavor that took over an hour. I decided Breakfast sounded good but my bread fell out of bag onto the floor. Breakfast would have to wait. As quickly as we got back on the road we suddenly pulled off again. This time each officer went one by one into a gas station to buy cigarettes and energy drinks. 

The metal of the shackles were starting to dig into my ankles, my wrists were cramping, my eardrums were shot beyond comprehension. Many others have said it before, but the one thing you really remember about the prison bus is how unbelievably loud it is. Every bump in the road is followed by a symphony of crashing metal. Inmates at the front of the bus maintain full conversations at full volume with their friends all the way in the back. The volume is at maximum for the entire journey. 

After about 5 hours we arrived at the Greenbriar Valley Regional Airport. There were several other prison busses parked off to the side of the runway. For the next hour or so a parade of officers from other busses would climb up and yell out a series of names. We were playing a grand game of musical chairs and for a brief moment I prayed that I would be called to another bus and spirited off to my camp bypassing the free plane ride to Oklahoma. 

Eventually musical chairs was over and we were instructed to get off the bus and directed to line of waiting US Marshalls standing in front of a plain white airplane adorned only with a small American flag on the tail fin. 

The Marshall patted me down, checked my mouth and feet and directed me to line up and wait by the front of the plane under the cockpit. They packed us in tight on the runway 10 rows of inmates at least 10 men deep. We watched inmates disembark the plane and enter the busses we just left. 

The whole thing must be a logistical nightmare for the folks at BOP and I was surprised how smoothly it all was moving. It was by no means quick, but it could have been far worse. Finally I was ordered to wobble up the stairs to board the plane. I felt like Joe Biden before falling up the stairs. 

How embarrassing it would be to eat it in front of all the convicts. I made it up without embarrassing myself. On board Air Operations Marshalls replaced flight attendants, though one really couldn’t tell any difference in demeanor between a Delta air steward herding a bunch of fat slobs in sweat suits and a US Marshall herding a bunch of prisoners. We filled each row from back to front at the direction of the Marshalls. 

I was sat in the window seat. The guy next to me sported a nifty full face tattoo and informed me he had been down 15 years and was kicked out of the USP for fighting. I informed him I was on my way to a camp and had been down for 6 months. He had nothing else to say to me after that. 

“This was the first taste of the outside world I had in 6 months.“

The plane itself had certainly seen better days, it looked to have been dated from The Cold War. The stickers commonly found plastered across the surfaces of airplanes telling you not to smoke or where to find the life vest in case of emergency – how exactly to apply said life vest while shackled and bound was not explained – were all in German and Russian. Where the hell did they get this thing from. 

The plane was filled 2/3 of the way with inmates. The final third at the front of the plane were all US Marshalls, at least 30 of them. With that, the plane took off and we were on our way to Oklahoma City. After about an hour an Air Marshall doing their best surly Delta stewardess impression threw a bag of lunch at us. It was the second – but not last – sack lunch containing 4 slices of bread, a pouch of peanut butter, two slices of turkey, and a small pack of cookies (“Cream 4 Fun” a BOP staple that even in my dire circumstances solicited a juvenile chuckle out of me). 

Sick to death at this point of the oily BOP peanut butter I happily pawned it off on the face tattoo next to me. I got started trying to fix myself a turkey sandwich – a task made difficult due to the cuffs and limited mobility. The bread was ice cold and the turkey was frozen solid. After brushing off the top layer of ice from the sliced meat and placing it between the now soggy and still freezing bread I took a bite and decided I wasn’t a great fan of turkey popsicle sandwich. The Cream 4 Fun would have to suffice for lunch. 

I was thankful for the small bottle of water that was handed out, but was not thrilled when I spilled most of it down my front contorting myself to try and twist the cap off. Shortly after lunch the Marshall went row by row to ask if we needed to use the toilet. Most people did, so the rest of the flight consisted of much jostling and shuffling to the bathroom and back. I refused, preferring to hold it, but the gentleman across the aisle let the entire plane know that he needed to take a shit, a declaration that caused much consternation and debate. 

As we approached Oklahoma City the pilot got on the intercom to let us all know it was a beautiful sunny day in Oklahoma City, a balmy 88 degrees. He failed to mention that none of us would see that sun for our entire stay in FTC Oklahoma City. 

We landed at OKC airport, went past the main terminal building towards a squat brown concrete building about 6 stories high. After what felt like an eternity we were disembarked row by row through the jet bridge directly into the airport prison. 

We shuffled single file through an assembly line of Marshalls who thankfully removed the cuffs and shackles, searched our mouths and feet again, and directed us into a dark concrete holding cell where we were packed in tight like a tin of sardines. In the corner of the room was a single stainless steel combination toilet, sink, water fountain. 

Almost immediately several inmates somehow fashioned a lighter and proceeded to get extremely high on K2 – known also as Deuce. In prisons Deuce is commonly just roach spray or rat poison drenched on a small piece of paper. 

When you light the paper and inhale the fumes you often freeze where you are standing lean over and are lost to the world around you for several minutes. I was most curious as to where the hell they were hiding these things to make it past no fewer than 3 probing searches. 

All I could think of was getting out of this claustrophobic concrete box into a housing unit with other minimum security “campers”. Everyone had warned me that security classifications would be mixed until you were assigned a housing unit. I just had to tough out the intake process. 

“You quietly wonder if Dante got it all wrong and all the circles of hell happen to be within the BOP’s Oklahoma City airport transfer facility.“

For being the official transit hub of the BOP, handling thousands of inmates every week, the staff at FTC Oklahoma City were breathtaking in their incompetence. Every last officer was less than useless, all of them wearing an expression of bewilderment as to how they happened to stumble into this predicament of dealing with a plane load of convicts, as if normally they were payroll accountants or copy clerks. 

It was as if it was everyone’s first day on the job. After jam packing us ass to elbow in the small concrete room for 4 hours – presumably they were having some sort of crisis meeting trying to determine what exactly they were supposed to do with us – a morbidly overweight officer whose stab-vest appeared to be groaning in protest at the enormity of the task of protecting such an enormous man unlocked the door and shouted that he needed five of us at a time. 

Instantly well over 100 men all desperate to be out of this hellish room push and shove their way towards the door. The only ones in no hurry are the deuce heads who have no idea where they are – and if they are indeed aware their limbs are in no mood to take any direction regarding movement – and myself who has no interest in playing grab ass with murderers and rapists. 

I wait patiently towards the back of the room and entertain myself by taking covert glances at the inmates around me to try and guess which ones are the ‘chomos’ (child molesters). You may at this point wish to chide me and extoll the virtues of not judging a book by its cover, but these books had covers that all but said “Hey Look! I’m a chomo!”. They have a look about them. 

After 45 minutes of 5 men trickling out at a time the room emptied and the deuce heads stumbled back into reality – what a horrible reality to return to from what must be a thrilling escape – and we shuffle out into the convict assembly line. 

We are commanded to undress, lift, squeeze, cough under the careful supervision of an officer no doubt cursing the recruiter at the Buttplug County job fair who never said anything about staring at genitals all day. 

Once the second strip search of the day concludes you are thrown a bundle of damp clothing with odd stains on them and hurry you further along the conveyor belt towards a long queue to go through a body scanner machine, the kind of thing you would find at an airport designed to find bombs and weapons. 

The officer manning the machine sits behind a lead curtain to shield themselves from radiation that leaks out of this whirring machine. The warning sticker helpfully informs you to keep back behind the blue line for your safety, but it turns out this warning is not for you, you are instructed to jam yourself as close as possible to the machine so they make sure to dose you with the radiation of the 6 guys ahead of you. 

Once you have been sufficiently irradiated you get pushed along where the medical officer menacingly asks if you have anything medically wrong with you, almost daring you to say anything but “no”. 

There is a whirlwind of papers being stamped, collated, duplicated, and filed and before you know it the assembly line ends. You breath a sigh of relief, surely some friendly officer is going to check your papers and notice you are a minimum security ‘camper’ and whisk you away. Instead yet another morbidly obese officer points at a room and makes some sort of grunting noise. You do not speak primate but gather he wants you to wait in the room. 

You quickly realize this room is a carbon copy of the first holding room and you quietly wonder if Dante got it all wrong and all the circles of hell happen to be within the BOP’s Oklahoma City airport transfer facility. 

“All I could think of was getting out of this claustrophobic concrete box.”

Another couple of hours pass – or years, who can tell at this point – in the second holding room and the Deuce heads are the only ones having a great time. The Deuce dealers have defeated yet another strip search and now a body scanner. Eventually an officer of indeterminate gender unlocks the door and yells out 5 to 10 names and you are escorted to your “range” (prison speak for the floor you live on). 

The officer leads us towards the elevator, 10 of us cram in and I get a good look at the men with me. Seven of them have full face tattoos that extend across their shaved heads. Rams horns, Celtic knots, Thor’s hammer, that sort of thing. 

At this point I am fully aware that a “camper” only range is a fantasy. I am going into the general population with murderers, rapists, kidnappers, gang members, and career criminals – many of whom have spent more time behind bars than they have in society. I take a deep breath, this is no time to be anxious or afraid. If the sharks smell fear they will strike. 

The guard walks us to the heavy metal door that seperates our range from the hallway. He turns the key but the door won’t open. He tries another key with the same result. One of the face tattoos mocks him “what is it your first day or something?” he heckles. The officer now very aware that this is taking way too long fumbles the keys and drops them on the floor. The scene is objectively funny and now several more of the inmates are heckling the clumsy officer. 

Finally the door opens from the inside. The range officer must have taken pity and opened it for him. The guys watching on the security cameras must have been pissing themselves. He will probably never hear the end of it in the breakroom. 

I am on Range 4D. The room is vaguely triangular in shape as if the architect started drawing a triangle but gave up halfway through. The room is large and painted in a palette of institutional grey and the same sort of pink they paint high schools. 

Cells with big metal doors line three of the walls. Two large staircases flank both sides of the room and take you up to an internal balcony where cells line the walls as well. If I remember correctly there are 30 two-man cells on each floor, so each range holds a total of 120 men. As soon as you cross the threshold between hallway and range you are immediately struck by the sheer number of strung out junkies hunched over seemingly frozen in place. 

Before you even have a chance to breathe several face tattoos are in your face asking if you want to buy drugs from them. These enterprising fellows apparently are running a fully stocked pharmacy. They offer me deuce, ice, meth, snizzlefizz, and junglerush. 

Okay, I made the last two up, but they offered me stuff I have never heard of before. I decline the offer and they move on quickly to a more lucrative mark. The range officer leaves his office and steps over a frozen drug addict and informs us that he is new here and to just give him a minute to get us situated. 

I politely wait while the officer – looking more and more flustered by the minute – assigns the guys ahead of me their cells, hands them a roll of toilet paper, and a thin mattress before sending them on their way into the jungle. When it is my turn the officer lets me know that he has run out of toilet paper and but if I give him a minute he will find me some. He gives me my cell number and scurries away back into his office. I follow him and remind him I need a mattress to which he explains he has run out of those as well, but if I just give him a minute he will try and locate one. 

From that point forward he was “Officer Just-A-Minute”. I climb over three junkies strung out on the staircase and make my way to the cell I have been assigned. 

“This isn’t fucking Guantanamo!” 

The cell is small, only a bunk bed, a toilet, a sink, a desk, and a fluorescent light. Inside is a large American Indian. If you asked someone to draw the most racist caricature of an American Indian he would have drawn this guy. 

He looks at me and says in a deep voice with a flat affect “I am Shadow”. The strange face tattoos gave him the air of some sort of tribal witch doctor. I said “You sure are” and quickly introduced myself lest he take offense to my glib remark and place a hex on me. 

I liked Shadow immediately. I learned that he was on his way to a USP doing 20 years for murder. Before I had a chance to explain that I was on my way to a camp for the fake crime of not having a license I didn’t even need in the first place Officer Just-A-Minute was in the doorway of the cell holding half of a foam mattress. 

Decidedly at the end of my tether I looked to him, to the mattress in his hands, back to him and asked incredulously “what the fuck am I supposed to do with that?”. “It is all we have” he responded slightly annoyed. “It is half gone. How the hell am I supposed to sleep on that? My ass and legs will be on bare metal!” I protested. “Welcome to prison” he responded curtly. 

I was seriously fed up at this point, plus I had Shadow the murdering witchdoctor to back me up so I pressed further “I understand this is prison. I am well aware of that fact! You still have an obligation to provide us basic amenities like bedding. This isn’t fucking Guantanamo!” 

I pushed. He simply shrugged and dropped the mat onto the floor and walked off. “Fuck that guy” said Shadow. I agreed. 

A few minutes later Officer Just-A-Minute walked by and locked the cell door. We were locked in for the night. It would be the first time I had been truly locked in a cell. I was mildly surprised there wasn’t some sort of central locking mechanism. The officer needed to walk by 60 cells and manually lock them all. A while after locking us in another officer showed up to perform the 10:00 PM count. 

Count concluded I climbed onto my half mattress and waited for the bright fluorescent light to be turned off. By 11:00 PM I asked Shadow what time they usually turned the lights off. “They don’t” he responded. 

I sighed and covered my head with the sheet they gave me – it smelled vaguely like motor oil and sawdust – and silently sobbed. Everyone told me that transit was bad, that Oklahoma was terrible. They were not overstating it. 

I laid there, ass on bare metal, harsh light shining through the threadbare sheet and asked myself if all this was worth the year off. I regretted ever leaving Morgantown, and I desperately wanted to call my wife Lauren.

The transit story will continue in Part 2. Thank you for reading.

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

This post Samourai Letter #7: Notes From The Inside first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Keonne Rodriguez.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine – Read More

Bitcoin Magazine

An Austrian Economist Explains Why AI Will Make Everyone an Entrepreneur w/ Per Bylund

AI is changing how we work, but can it replace the human entrepreneur? Austrian economist Per Bylund, Senior Fellow at the Mises Institute, joins Spencer Nichols to explain why AI is a statistical engine that improves efficiency but can’t imagine the future. He argues we’re moving from an employment economy to an entrepreneurship economy, and explains what that means for jobs, innovation, and value creation.

Chapters:
00:00 Austrian Economics on AI, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship
02:34 Can AI Replace the Entrepreneur?
05:48 Invention vs Innovation: What Bitcoin Teaches About AI
06:29 From an Employment Economy to an Entrepreneurship Economy
09:52 Can Regulators Keep Up With the Speed of AI?
13:06 Remote Work, Capital Controls, and the Future of Money
18:23 Why Every Voluntary Trade Has Two Winners
26:28 The Individual vs the State in US-China Competition
31:17 Steel Stockpiles, Sugar Subsidies, and the Lobbying Behind Protectionism
33:36 OpenAI, Anthropic, and Regulatory Capture in AI

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this show are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of BTC Inc., Bitcoin Magazine, or any affiliated entities. This content is provided for informational and educational purposes only and should not be construed as investment, legal, tax, or accounting advice. Nothing contained in this show constitutes a solicitation, recommendation, endorsement, or offer to buy or sell any securities or financial instruments. Viewers should consult their own advisors before making financial or business decisions.

This post An Austrian Economist Explains Why AI Will Make Everyone an Entrepreneur w/ Per Bylund first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Patrick Green.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine – Read More

Bitcoin Magazine

TECHNICAL ANALYSIS: BTC to Cross Key Price Level Against Gold

The 90-day correlation between Bitcoin and gold just hit a six-year high, and Bitcoin is now just 3% away from flipping positive against gold for 2026. In today’s Chart of the Day, Sean breaks down the Bitcoin-to-gold chart, the string of higher lows since February, and the new high above 17.9 ounces.

Chapters:
0:00 Bitcoin-Gold 90-Day Correlation Hits a Six-Year High
0:35 Why Measure Bitcoin in Gold? Stripping Out Dollar Debasement
1:20 Higher Lows and Higher Highs on the BTC/Gold Chart
2:27 From 12.1 oz to 17.9 oz: The Bullish Bitcoin Setup
2:53 The 20.3 oz 2026 Yearly Open and the Levels That Matter
3:21 Next Bitcoin Resistance: 21.5 oz of Gold (~$92K)

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this show are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of BTC Inc., Bitcoin Magazine, or any affiliated entities. This content is provided for informational and educational purposes only and should not be construed as investment, legal, tax, or accounting advice. Nothing contained in this show constitutes a solicitation, recommendation, endorsement, or offer to buy or sell any securities or financial instruments. Viewers should consult their own advisors before making financial or business decisions.

This post TECHNICAL ANALYSIS: BTC to Cross Key Price Level Against Gold first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Patrick Green.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine – Read More

Bitcoin Magazine

North Korean Hackers Linked to $388M Bitget Crypto Exchange Theft: CEO

Hackers from North Korea targeted crypto exchange Bitget on Thursday, according to an update from the CEO, making away with close to $388 million in digital assets — more than originally reported. 

Bitget CEO Gracy Chen said Friday that the higher figure “reflects a more complete accounting of transfers during the incident.” Chen had first reported that over $350 million had been moved.

Security firms first flagged unauthorized transactions from the Victoria, Seychelles-based exchange’s hot wallets on Thursday before the company announced it had frozen withdrawals.

Bitget is the sixth biggest crypto exchange, processing over $1 billion in trading volume per day, according to CoinGecko data. 

“Based on IP behavior patterns and on-chain analysis, the attack method in this incident is highly consistent with known patterns of North Korean hacker organizations,” Chen wrote on X on Friday. 

She added: “Our goal is to complete a full recovery as soon as possible. We will announce the specific time window immediately upon confirmation.”

In a security update, the exchange said it identified the digital assets stolen, which mostly included ethereum, tron, and USDT stablecoin — and no bitcoin. But a stolen funds tracker does show that the attacker has over $28.8 million in the leading cryptocurrency. 

Crypto stealing criminals — especially from North Korea — have become more sophisticated and faster since last year. Experts have said that the use of artificial intelligence tools is allowing cyber crooks to work more efficiently. 

U.S. authorities have long alleged that hacking groups with ties to the North Korea’s government, such as Lazarus, steal from crypto exchanges. 

Crypto security is in the limelight after a string of breaches this year have the community reeling. Just in July, hackers targeted a firmware bug in the popular bitcoin hardware wallet, Coldcard, to steal nearly $120 million in user funds. 

And this month, purported white-hat hackers withdrew about 4,000 bitcoins — worth about $320 million at the time — from Blockstream’s Liquid sidechain’s federation wallet. They then returned 85% and demanded to keep the rest as ransom days later.

This post North Korean Hackers Linked to $388M Bitget Crypto Exchange Theft: CEO first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine – Read More

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin ETFs Extend Winning Streak With Nearly $3B in Inflows

Bitcoin exchange-traded funds are on a winning streak, with investors buying for six consecutive days.

The funds — managed by the likes of BlackRock, Fidelity, and Morgan Stanley — have received over $2.8 billion in new investment since September 17, according to Farside Investors data. 

On Monday alone, investors bought nearly $1 billion in shares  — the most since October 6, when the funds received over $1.2 billion and the price of the leading cryptocurrency hit a new all-time high of $126,080. 

Still, Bitcoin’s price on Friday is only up modestly: it recently stood at nearly $83,975 after reaching as high as $87,330 on Monday. Over the past seven days, the coin’s price has surged by nearly 4%. 

While the price of the leading cryptocurrency has since dipped from earlier this week, Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart pointed out that the average ETF buyer is now in profit after the estimated ETF cost basis surged above $81,72 for the first time since January.  

Investors have a renewed interest in Bitcoin since the U.S. Department of the Treasury in August said it would at least double the size of its liquidity-support buyback operations. 

Bitcoin’s price rallied as the move pushed 30-year Treasury yields down and weakened the dollar. Since the August announcement, U.S. Treasury yields have surged again. 

Bitcoin continued its run last week, shrugging off the fact that lawmakers had blocked landmark crypto legislation, the Clarity Act, and the Federal Reserve had hiked interest rates. 

Some analysts have said that the leading cryptocurrency is now in a bull run. Crypto market data firm CryptoQuant this week wrote that the leading cryptocurrency crossed above its 365-day moving average, a signal that the asset has finished being in a bear market.  

Bitcoin notched a record of $126,080 in October of last year but then began to sink later that month after the biggest liquidation event in crypto history saw over $19 billion in bets closed. But the so-called debasement trade — where investors throw money at an asset to hedge against a currency losing its value — is hot again, and bitcoin’s price has benefited as the dollar has weakened.

This post Bitcoin ETFs Extend Winning Streak With Nearly $3B in Inflows first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine – Read More

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin Treasury Strategy Proposes Daily Dividends For Preferred Stocks

Bitcoin treasury company Strategy wants to pay investors daily dividends on four of its preferred stocks.

The largest corporate holder of bitcoin said Friday that it was asking shareholders to approve the move, which would pay investors dividends every calendar day — including weekends and holidays — on STRF, STRC, STRK, and STRD. 

“If approved and adopted, we believe this would reduce reinvestment lag, enhance liquidity and market efficiency, and increase price stability,” Strategy said in a statement. Stockholders will attend a meeting to vote on the proposal on October 28. 

Strategy slowed down with its aggressive bitcoin buys this year, as the largest cryptocurrency fell into a bear market. The Nasdaq-listed company instead focused on protecting its balance sheet and sold chunks of its bitcoin. 

Friday’s announcement claimed the move would help both investors and common stockholders. 

“We believe these enhancements can also benefit our common stockholders by increasing the attractiveness and utility of our Digital Credit instruments, supporting our ability to access preferred equity capital efficiently and expanding the capital markets toolkit we use to execute our Bitcoin Treasury strategy,” Strategy added in a statement. 

Strategy — formerly MicroStrategy — is an enterprise software company that pivoted to buying and holding bitcoin in 2020. 

It first bought the cryptocurrency to protect its shareholders from inflation. Since then, it has aggressively bought the asset and pivoted to being a bitcoin treasury. 

Investors can now buy its shares to get heightened exposure to the cryptocurrency, or get paid a yield via its digital credit products. 

The company would buy bitcoin every Monday but slowed down its buys after announcing a program under which it may sell BTC  from time to time to generate up to $1.25 billion in proceeds for the USD reserve, additionally fund preferred stock dividends and interest expenses or fund repurchases. 

Strategy said in a filing Monday that it last week bought 950 bitcoins for $75.7 million — its first buy since August. 

Its Nasdaq-listed stock (MSTR) is down nearly 50% over the past year after the price of bitcoin took a hit. 

But since the company started buying bitcoin in 2020, MSTR has appreciated by nearly 1,000%. 

This post Bitcoin Treasury Strategy Proposes Daily Dividends For Preferred Stocks first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine – Read More

Bitcoin Magazine

Nearly $352M Moved From Crypto Exchange Bitget Wallets in Suspected Hack

An estimated $351.6 million in crypto has been moved from digital asset exchange Bitget’s hot wallets in a suspected hack. 

The platform’s CEO said in a Thursday statement that Bitget’s security team activated an emergency response when the movements were detected. Blockchain security firms had flagged the issue earlier in the day.  

“At 18:31 UTC on September 24, 2026, Bitget’s security systems detected unauthorized transfers from some of our hot wallets,” Bitget CEO Gracy Chen wrote on X. “Our security team activated emergency response protocols immediately.”

She added: “Bitget has navigated multiple market cycles. We will not run from this. Every dollar and every decision will be accounted for, transparently and in full.”

Victoria, Seychelles-based Bitget is the sixth biggest exchange, processing over $1.1 billion in trading volume per day, according to CoinGecko data. 

The incident comes as crypto security is in the limelight after a string of breaches this year have the community reeling. Just in July, hackers targeted a firmware bug in the popular bitcoin hardware wallet, Coldcard, to steal nearly $120 million in user funds. 

And this month, purported white-hat hackers withdrew about 4,000 bitcoins — worth about $320 million at the time — from Blockstream’s Liquid sidechain’s federation wallet.

Chen added that the exchange’s cold wallets remained fully secure and that user funds were safe. 

She wrote: “Bitget operates a three-tier wallet architecture — the breach contained only a portion of the hot wallet and warm wallet layers.”

According to the statement, deposits and trading remain fully operational but withdrawals are temporarily paused until a security review is complete. 

Blockchain data firm Arkham Intelligence created a dashboard soon after the unauthorized transfers showing that a number of different cryptocurrencies — including stablecoins — had been moved from the Bitget hot wallet. 

While Bitcoin was not on Arkham’s list, crypto security firm Hacken later said on X that the largest cryptocurrency had been moved. 

This post Nearly $352M Moved From Crypto Exchange Bitget Wallets in Suspected Hack first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine – Read More

Bitcoin Magazine

New York Sues Polymarket, Calling Prediction Market an Illegal Gambling Operation

New York Attorney General Letitia James and Governor Kathy Hochul on Thursday filed a lawsuit against crypto-based prediction market Polymarket, accusing the platform of running an unlicensed gambling operation in the state.

An investigation by the Attorney General’s office concluded that these markets meet New York’s legal definition of gambling because users stake money on uncertain outcomes they cannot control. 

Polymarket never obtained a license from the New York State Gaming Commission, the suit alleges, and so avoided the taxes that licensed casinos and mobile sportsbooks pay. That revenue helps fund public schools, youth sports programs and problem gambling treatment.

The suit comes as regulators like the Securities and Exchange Commission and the  Commodity Futures Trading Commission are working to regulate crypto-powered prediction markets. 

Polymarket and rival Kalshi argue they aren’t gambling sites at all, but rather federally regulated exchanges offering “event contracts,” a type of derivative, which would put them under the Commodity Futures Trading Commission rather than state gaming laws. 

The CFTC agrees, and it has joined the fight on the platforms’ side. In 2026 it sued nine states, arguing that it should have exclusive nationwide authority over the industry.

Thursday’s complaint also says the platform is open to users aged 18 to 20, although New York requires mobile sports bettors to be at least 21. 

“By skirting New York’s laws, Polymarket is targeting the most vulnerable,” James said. Hochul added that the company had “knowingly” violated state law and put underage users at risk.

The state is asking a court to bar Polymarket from operating as an unlicensed gambling business in New York. It also wants the company to forfeit its illegal gains, repay harmed users and pay fines equal to three times those gains.

The lawsuit is the latest in a string of New York actions against gambling-adjacent platforms. James and Hochul sued rival prediction market Kalshi in July, and James sued Coinbase and Gemini in April over similar claims. Earlier this month, James secured $8 million from the leading operator of sweepstakes casinos.

Polymarket launched in the United States in December 2025, initially letting users bet on sporting events with plans to expand into markets on a wide range of topics. 

This post New York Sues Polymarket, Calling Prediction Market an Illegal Gambling Operation first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine – Read More

Bitcoin Magazine

SEC Commissioner Hester ‘Crypto Mom’ Peirce Advocates Privacy-Preserving Tech 

Outgoing Securities and Exchange Commission Commissioner Hester Peirce has said that regulators should rethink how they monitor the financial system, and to press for less personal data collection, not more. 

In a speech Wednesday focusing on digital identity systems and decentralized networks, Peirce took aim at know-your-customer and anti-money-laundering rules.

U.S. regulators are now racing ahead with crypto rulemaking. Peirce, who earned the nickname “crypto mom” for her friendly approach to watchdogging the space, is set to leave the SEC in November. 

“Today society is at a crossroads,” Peirce said at the SIFMA’s Digital Assets Conference in New York. 

“Down one path lies the status quo: more data collection, more intermediary surveillance, more ‘know your customer’ requirements that turn our financial rails into a panopticon.”

“Down the other path lies an opportunity to use new technologies to improve our ability to catch criminals while collecting less personal information than ever before, and monitoring more sparingly to protect Americans’ privacy.”

Peirce argued that piling up ever more data on law-abiding customers to help find criminals doesn’t work. In her view, bigger “haystacks” make the needles harder to find, while every stored data point raises the risk of leaks or misuse. 

She criticized a regulatory mindset fixated on “data go up,” comparing it to crypto enthusiasts’ obsession with rising prices.

Peirce pointed to cryptographic tools such as zero-knowledge proofs and attribute-based credentials, which can confirm facts like a person’s age, accredited-investor status, or absence from sanctions lists without revealing the underlying personal details. 

She also urged the SEC to let firms rely on identity checks already performed by other regulated institutions, rather than making every firm collect and store the same sensitive information.

Under President Joe Biden, the SEC was tough on the crypto space, with its Biden-appointed former Chair Gary Gensler frequently suing major crypto companies for allegedly selling unregistered securities. 

Peirce was appointed to lead the Crypto Task Force in 2025. The regulator has taken a far more friendly approach to watchdogging the space since Donald Trump became president again. 

Now, regulators are saying they want to create clear rules for the fast-moving industry, despite landmark legislation, the Clarity Act, being blocked last week. 

Despite Commissioner Peirce’s alias, she previously said she would not describe herself as an advocate of the industry, but rather a “freedom maximalist.”

This post SEC Commissioner Hester ‘Crypto Mom’ Peirce Advocates Privacy-Preserving Tech  first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine – Read More

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin Price Slips While US Treasury Yields Soar, Oil Prices Climb

Bitcoin’s price slid on Wednesday, just as U.S. Treasuries surged, with the 10-year yield climbing above 5% and reaching — its highest level since 2007. 

The price of the leading cryptocurrency was down 2% over a 24-hour period Wednesday afternoon in New York, and was trading hands for $84,357. 

Bitcoin’s price had surged earlier in the week as investors piled into exchange-traded funds. At one point, it soared as high as nearly $87,330. 

But its rally has since cooled. It dropped further on Wednesday afternoon around the time the U.S. Treasury said it will purchase up to $6 billion of longer-dated government debt on Thursday. 

Bitcoin previously benefited from the Treasury Department’s announcement of buybacks — having its best run in months — but this time dropped.

The 10-year Treasury yield climbed above 5% on Wednesday for the first time in 19 years, after September’s flash PMI data came in well ahead of forecasts and pushed the composite index to a five-year high.

Inflation details added to the pressure: input costs across manufacturing and services rose to their highest level since October 2022, driven largely by fuel and transportation, while wage pressure also strengthened. 

Rising yields are typically a headwind for bitcoin’s price. When safe government bonds pay 5%, holding an asset that generates no income becomes more expensive. 

Higher rates also tend to strengthen the dollar and dampen appetite for risk-on assets. Bitcoin has repeatedly retreated this year when yields rose on inflation fears, often with ETF outflows and forced selling by leveraged traders amplifying the move.

This post Bitcoin Price Slips While US Treasury Yields Soar, Oil Prices Climb first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine – Read More

Bitcoin Magazine

CFTC Chair Selig Says Regulator Is Preparing for ‘24-7, On-Chain’ Markets

Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chair Mike Selig has said that the regulator was preparing for the transition of markets moving “24-7, on-chain.” 

Speaking to CNBC on Wednesday, the regulator said that it was an exciting time to be regulating markets related to crypto and artificial intelligence. 

The CFTC is fast pushing ahead with rulemaking for the crypto space, despite lawmakers last week blocking the long-awaited Clarity Act. Following the vote on the landmark crypto legislation, Selig said that the watchdog would still help U.S. President Trump “get the job done” in regulating digital assets. 

“Our markets are rapidly evolving,” Selig said. “We really have to reevaluate all of our rules and regulations to make sure that we’re ready and prepared for this transition to 24-7 on-chain and these automated markets that are facilitated through the use of algorithms and agentic finance.”

The Clarity Act wants to formally divide oversight between regulators, distinguishing which digital assets are securities, commodities or stablecoins. 

But the bill stalled and stumbled this year as the banking lobby had issues with crypto companies paying customers stablecoin rewards and some lawmakers — mostly Democrats — were concerned about the ethics side of the legislation. 

Trump received backing from major industry players while campaigning and since becoming president, his family has made money from digital asset ventures. 

Some lawmakers have alleged conflicts of interest; the White House has always denied any wrongdoing. 

Despite lawmakers blocking the Clarity Act, the CFTC and Securities and Exchange Commission have charged ahead with rulemaking. The CFTC last week sent a proposal to the White House to regulate crypto transactions and markets. 

And the SEC went ahead and approved tokenized stocks trading the same week. In August, it also proposed its own framework for crypto asset offerings, pressing ahead while the landmark legislation stalled.  

Formerly chief counsel at the SEC’s Crypto Task Force, Selig was described by White House’s Crypto and AI Tsar, David Sacks, as “instrumental in driving forward the President’s crypto agenda” 

President Trump in August urged lawmakers to get the Clarity Act over the line, referring to the legislation as “very, very powerful.” 

This post CFTC Chair Selig Says Regulator Is Preparing for ‘24-7, On-Chain’ Markets first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine – Read More

Bitcoin Magazine

NYSE and Blockchain.com Working Together To List Tokenized Stocks

The New ​York Stock Exchange and crypto exchange Blockchain.com have signed a memorandum of understanding to debut tokenized stocks. 

According to a Wednesday statement, if approved, Blockchain.com users would be able to trade tokenized U.S.-listed stocks and exchange-traded funds on NYSE’s planned digital alternative trading system. 

It comes as Wall Street increasingly eyes up Bitcoin and its related infrastructure. NYSE’s  parent company, Intercontinental Exchange, earlier this year announced it had invested in crypto exchange OKX. 

“People shouldn’t be limited in owning stocks based on where they happen to live or the brokerage and information they may or may not have access to,” Peter Smith, Blockchain.com’s executive chairman and CEO, said in a statement. 

“Connecting to the NYSE digital alternative trading system will enable us to extend the opportunity to invest in these digital assets to tens of millions of Blockchain.com users around the world.”

And NYSE Group President Lynn Martin added: “The future of capital markets belongs to institutions that unite the trust of traditional finance with the innovation and accessibility of digital assets.” 

In January, the NYSE said it was building a platform allowing traders to buy and sell tokenized versions of U.S.-listed equities and exchange-traded funds and settle those trades on the blockchain, 24/7. 

Wall Street has been eying up crypto companies and their infrastructure particularly because it’s interested in tokenizing assets like stocks. Traditional finance titans like BlackRock and Franklin Templeton for years have used blockchain rails to tokenize money funds.

But things have accelerated since the U.S. elected pro-crypto president Donald Trump and regulators have taken a more friendly stance to watchdogging the space. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission last week approved tokenized stocks trading. 

In January, the S&P 500 gave crypto platform Trade[XYZ] the green light to debut a new derivative contract on decentralized exchange Hyperliquid, giving traders the ability to trade the stock index 24-7. 

And Last month, Payward, the parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, and fintech company SoFi Technologies, announced a deal to route SoFi customers’ crypto orders through Kraken’s institutional trading platform and list SoFi’s stablecoin on the exchange.

This post NYSE and Blockchain.com Working Together To List Tokenized Stocks first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine – Read More

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin Investors Buy Nearly $1B in BTC ETFs as Bull Market Returns

The Bitcoin bulls are back — if ETF flows are to be believed. 

U.S. bitcoin exchange-traded funds received $999 million in new investment on Monday, according to Farside Investors data. 

That’s the most in one day since October 6, when the funds received over $1.2 billion and the price of the leading cryptocurrency hit a new all-time high of $126,080. 

Bitcoin’s price recently stood at $86,552 after scraping $87,330 on Monday. Over the past seven days, the coin’s price has surged by nearly 13%. 

Bitcoin ETFs in the U.S. — approved by the SEC in 2024 — have helped investors get exposure when they couldn’t before. Now, Wall Street firms can quickly buy shares of funds managed by the likes of BlackRock, Fidelity, Morgan Stanley, and others. 

When big investment hits the funds, the price often moves significantly — as what happened on Monday. 

Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart on Monday said that the average ETF buyer is now in profit after the estimated ETF cost basis surged above $81,72 for the first time since January.  

The ETF to receive the most of Monday’s investment — $381.4 million — was BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin trust. The ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF received $289.1 million; Fidelity’s Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund took in $238.8 million. 

Investors have a renewed interest in Bitcoin after the artificial intelligence stock rally cooled and the U.S. Department of the Treasury in August said it would at least double the size of its liquidity-support buyback operations. 

Analysts said the move pushed 30-year Treasury yields down, weakened the dollar, and made assets like bitcoin more attractive. Following the announcement, the bitcoin price had its best run in years. 

A Tuesday report from crypto market data firm CryptoQuant said that the leading cryptocurrency crossed above its 365-day moving average, a signal that the asset has finished being in a bear market.  

This post Bitcoin Investors Buy Nearly $1B in BTC ETFs as Bull Market Returns first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine – Read More

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin’s Bull Run Is Back — and the Data Agrees

Bitcoin’s run this weekend would have observers believing that the bull market is back. But the data also backs it up. 

A new report from data firm CryptoQuant shows that the leading cryptocurrency crossed above its 365-day moving average — a signal that the asset has finished being in a bear market. 

Bitcoin’s price surged in August and had its best run in years, spurred by an announcement from the U.S. Treasury saying it would at least double the size of its liquidity-support buyback operations. Its run cooled but then last week shot up again and was recently trading for $86,598 after trading as high as nearly $87,330 on Monday. 

“This crossover is the definitive technical signal that has marked the start of Bitcoin’s bull markets in past cycles, and it is the first time price has reclaimed the 365-day moving average since March 2023,” the report read. 

It added that the moving average is a “cycle-defining” line and confirmed the start of bull runs in previous years. 

“Its track record across cycles is why this reclaim carries real weight rather than being a routine bounce,” the report added. 

The report continued that long-term holders appear to have finished selling, making the way for new investors to enter the market. 

Bitcoin notched a record of $126,080 in October of last year but then began to sink later that month after the biggest liquidation event in crypto history saw over $19 billion in bets closed. 

In the first half of this year it continued its plunge after the Federal Reserve made it clear it was in no hurry to lower interest rates and investors increasingly threw money at artificial intelligence-related stocks to get returns. 

But the so-called debasement trade — where investors throw money at an asset to hedge against a currency losing its value — is hot again. Bitcoin and precious metals like gold have done well when the dollar has weakened. 

And the Federal Reserve last week raised interest rates to get sky-high inflation in the U.S. under control. Investors shrugged the central bank’s move off and bought up the asset. 

Now, people seem more interested in buying an asset that can protect them from government debt and deficit. In August, total U.S. debt topped $40 trillion for the first time. 

This post Bitcoin’s Bull Run Is Back — and the Data Agrees first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine – Read More

Bitcoin Magazine

White Hats Move Over $4.5 in Bitcoins From Coldcard to Recovery Trust

White hats have moved bitcoin from the hacked Coldcard signing devices to a trust for would-be victims to reclaim, Galaxy Digital’s Alex Thorn has said. 

Writing on X on Monday, Thorn said that the funds were taken by white hats to protect potential victims. They are now apparently sitting in an address controlled by Crypto Recovery Trust, a Wyoming Trust created to help white hats return funds to victims. 

A total of 52.37 of the bitcoins — worth over $4.5 million at today’s prices — were moved. Thorn added that the funds represented 2.8% of the coldcard exploit. 

Criminals started taking bitcoin stored using Coinkite’s popular Coldcard hardware wallet on July 31. 

Canadian company Coinkite said that a firmware bug in Coldcard devices caused seed generation to fall back to a weak software Pseudorandom Number Generator instead of the hardware true random number generator, allowing hackers to essentially guess investor seedphrases. 

Galaxy Digital tracked the movement of funds and said 1,789.28 bitcoins were lost in the attacks. That’s $154.1 million in bitcoin at today’s prices. 

Earlier this month, Nick Bax of universal market protocol Ump Labs said that he was involved in helping recover the funds. 

“Finally able to say that at the end of July, I was involved in the rescue of ~50 BTC which were “imminently going to be stolen due to the COLDCARD entropy flaw,” Bax wrote on X. 

He added: “The funds are currently held by a Wyoming trust, which will ensure that funds are returned to their rightful owners.”

Since the attack, cautious investors have been moving their coins to other storage solutions — including exchanges.

Coinkite said in a statement that the bug in its software “silently went unnoticed” and “its potential impact grew with every release” of its products. 

Days after the first hack, the company urged investors to update their software or move their funds off the popular hardware wallet.

This post White Hats Move Over $4.5 in Bitcoins From Coldcard to Recovery Trust first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine – Read More

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin Bull Market Engaged? 50-Week Moving Average Flips Bullish

Bitcoin just closed a weekly candle above its 50-week simple moving average for the first time this cycle, and Sean Hagan puts roughly 80% confidence on this being a genuine regime change. In this Chart of the Day, he and Grace Remington break down why this indicator has historically marked the line between bull and bear regimes, what one additional weekly close would confirm, and the only two times in Bitcoin’s history the signal didn’t hold. With Bitcoin up nearly 10% on the week and pushing through $86K, the timing lines up almost exactly with the one-year window from all-time high to cycle bottom.

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this show are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of BTC Inc., Bitcoin Magazine, or any affiliated entities. This content is provided for informational and educational purposes only and should not be construed as investment, legal, tax, or accounting advice. Nothing contained in this show constitutes a solicitation, recommendation, endorsement, or offer to buy or sell any securities or financial instruments. Viewers should consult their own advisors before making financial or business decisions.

This post Bitcoin Bull Market Engaged? 50-Week Moving Average Flips Bullish first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Patrick Green.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine – Read More

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin ETF Holders Back in the Black as Price Barrels Towards $87,000

Bitcoin exchange-traded fund holders are back in profit after the cryptocurrency’s latest surge. 

Posted on X on Monday, Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart wrote that the rally on Monday morning in New York posted the average investor above the estimated ETF cost basis of $81,72 for the first time since January. 

Bitcoin shot above $86,000 despite key crypto legislation, the Clarity Act, getting blocked last week and the Federal Reserve raising interest rates. The price of cryptocurrency was recently at close to $86,772 after trading as high as $86,837 earlier in the day. 

The coin’s price now sits over 30% below the all-time high it hit last year of $126,080. 

U.S. Bitcoin ETFs — managed by the likes of BlackRock, Fidelity, Grayscale, and Morgan Stanley —  last week received net positive flows of over $6 million. Investors jumped back into buying shares of the products on Thursday and Friday, throwing nearly $593 million at the vehicles, according to Farside Investors data. 

Bitcoin in August started rallying after the Treasury Department said it would least double the size of its long-dated bond buybacks. It then had its best week since 2023. 

Bitcoin notched an all-time high in October but its run ended later that month after the biggest liquidation event in crypto history saw over $19 billion in bets closed. 

The coin continued its plunge after the Federal Reserve made it clear it was in no hurry to lower interest rates and investors increasingly threw money at artificial intelligence-related stocks. 

But the coin has since shrugged off news that the Federal Reserve was pivoting to hawkishness as investors pile back into the so-called debasement trade. 

The Securities and Exchange Commission in 2024 approved Bitcoin ETFs to trade in the U.S. and the funds had the most successful launch in the history of the investment vehicles. 

Investors previously put off from buying Bitcoin due to the complexities of cold storage and private keys can now buy shares that trade on stock exchanges that track the price of Bitcoin. 

The ETFs — managed by other top Wall Street fund managers — currently manage a total of $98.8 billion in assets, according to Coinglass data. 

This post Bitcoin ETF Holders Back in the Black as Price Barrels Towards $87,000 first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine – Read More

Bitcoin Magazine

Jordi Visser: Why AI Agents Make the BTC Bull Case

Crypto spent 15 years building rails — lending, tokenization, stablecoins — and Jordi Visser argues the users it was built for were never meant to be human. In this conversation with Grace Remington and Sean Hagan, Visser lays out his Ghost Rails thesis, comparing today’s moment to the 14-year gap between Netscape going public and the App Store finally putting the internet in everyone’s hands. He explains why AI agents, not retail wallets, are the inflection point for the agentic economy, and why that’s “extremely positive” for Bitcoin specifically. If you’ve wondered what actually breaks the liquidity-driven narrative around this asset class, start here.

Chapters:
00:00 — Betting on nominal growth: can AI outrun the U.S. debt load?
02:06 — Why Bitcoin is the only asset surviving 20 years
04:01 — Crypto built the plumbing, AI agents became the users
07:33 — Tokenization turns $900 trillion of illiquid assets into money
09:50 — What has to break before the top 10% finally buy Bitcoin
12:18 — The Santa Claus effect and why belief beats innovation
14:23 — Swarms working 24/7 and the exponential investors ignore
16:47 — Debt-financed data centers, cancer breakthroughs, and the bond market scare
19:19 — The AI doomsday soap opera
23:09 — Bitcoin demand for 30 years and the case for good deflation

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this show are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of BTC Inc., Bitcoin Magazine, or any affiliated entities. This content is provided for informational and educational purposes only and should not be construed as investment, legal, tax, or accounting advice. Nothing contained in this show constitutes a solicitation, recommendation, endorsement, or offer to buy or sell any securities or financial instruments. Viewers should consult their own advisors before making financial or business decisions.

This post Jordi Visser: Why AI Agents Make the BTC Bull Case first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Patrick Green.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine – Read More

Bitcoin Magazine

Move Over Housing – Bitcoin is Gen Z’s New Wealth Building Asset

Gen Z now makes up less than 5% of the new home market and Hunter Albright of SALT Lending thinks that changes what assets an entire generation chooses to build wealth with. In this conversation he connects housing affordability, Bitcoin as collateral, and the rise of borrowing against Bitcoin for down payments without locking your coins up for 30 years. Albright also covers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac recognizing Bitcoin, SALT’s five-year loan terms, and what a Bitcoin-powered life actually looks like in practice.

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this show are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of BTC Inc., Bitcoin Magazine, or any affiliated entities. This content is provided for informational and educational purposes only and should not be construed as investment, legal, tax, or accounting advice. Nothing contained in this show constitutes a solicitation, recommendation, endorsement, or offer to buy or sell any securities or financial instruments. Viewers should consult their own advisors before making financial or business decisions.

This post Move Over Housing – Bitcoin is Gen Z’s New Wealth Building Asset first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Patrick Green.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine – Read More

Bitcoin Magazine

T. Rowe Price’s Blue Macellari: Bitcoin is Now Core to the Debasement Conversation

Blue Macellari spent 20 years investing in emerging market sovereign and distressed debt before building T. Rowe Price’s digital assets business — which makes her read on the Treasury market unusually worth hearing. She discusses the return of the bond vigilantes, the shift from foreign to domestic financing of US debt, and why the Japan and Italy comparisons don’t map cleanly onto America’s buyer base. She also assesses whether GENIUS Act stablecoin demand for T-bills is a material change or wishful thinking.

Chapters:
0:00 — How the Digital Asset Conversation Changed Inside T. Rowe Price
1:15 — Why T. Rowe Price Built an Actively Managed Multi-Token ETF
2:43 — Tokenization at Scale and the Automation of Asset Management
4:22 — Bifurcated Liquidity and the Risks of 24/7 Trading
6:11 — The Brazil Mortgage Story That Became a Bitcoin Origin Story
7:04 — Global Liquidity, Fiscal Concerns and the Bond Vigilantes Return
8:26 — Foreign vs Domestic Treasury Buyers and the Japan Comparison
10:15 — Can GENIUS Act Stablecoins Create Real Demand for T-Bills?
11:16 — Why the Debasement Trade Actually Drives Institutional Allocations
13:02 — Volatility as a Portfolio Tool and the Generational Allocation Split

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this show are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of BTC Inc., Bitcoin Magazine, or any affiliated entities. This content is provided for informational and educational purposes only and should not be construed as investment, legal, tax, or accounting advice. Nothing contained in this show constitutes a solicitation, recommendation, endorsement, or offer to buy or sell any securities or financial instruments. Viewers should consult their own advisors before making financial or business decisions.

This post T. Rowe Price’s Blue Macellari: Bitcoin is Now Core to the Debasement Conversation first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Patrick Green.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine – Read More

Bitcoin Magazine

Coinbase Policy Chief: Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Bill Outlook

The Clarity Act’s cloture vote failed this week, and Coinbase Chief Policy Officer Faryar Shirzad has the clearest post-mortem yet on why. He points to an electoral calendar that caught the bill late in the cycle and a roughly $200 million campaign by big banks that created serious drag on the process. Shirzad explains why he believes Congress has had its shot and why the real action now moves to the SEC, CFTC and bank regulators under Paul Atkins. He also lays out the three-track policy strategy — legislation, regulation and international — that he says still has strong momentum.

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this show are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of BTC Inc., Bitcoin Magazine, or any affiliated entities. This content is provided for informational and educational purposes only and should not be construed as investment, legal, tax, or accounting advice. Nothing contained in this show constitutes a solicitation, recommendation, endorsement, or offer to buy or sell any securities or financial instruments. Viewers should consult their own advisors before making financial or business decisions.

This post Coinbase Policy Chief: Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Bill Outlook first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Patrick Green.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine – Read More

Bitcoin Magazine

European Central Bank President Blocked Binance’s EU Entry: Report

European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde stopped Binance from operating in the European Union, according to a Wall Street Journal report. 

The newspaper on Thursday reported that the top crypto exchange was on the cusp of operating in the trading bloc but then was told it couldn’t after the central bank chief waded in. 

EU law requires that local Crypto-Asset Service Providers (CASP) have a MiCA license. Binance does not. Binance in June withdrew its MiCA application in Greece. 

“Lagarde wanted to keep the controversial crypto exchange, which pleaded guilty to financial-crime violations in the U.S., out of the European Union,” the newspaper report said, citing interviews with officials. 

Lagarde has long been anti-Bitcoin and pro-central bank digital currencies. Back in 2021, Lagarde said that the leading cryptocurrency was “a highly speculative asset” used for money laundering. She also criticized cryptocurrencies as a whole and said central banks would never hold bitcoin. 

On CBDCs, though, Lagarde takes a different approach. A CBDC is a digital form of fiat money, like the US dollar or euro; nations around the world are in different stages of researching and releasing them. 

The EU under Lagarde is fast moving forward with a digital euro. Lagarde has described the digital euro as key to Europe’s financial autonomy while taking aim at privately issued stablecoins. 

CBDCs have been criticized by bitcoiners and others in the crypto industry who think they could be used to surveil citizens. U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order banning CBDCs when he took office.

The WSJ report added, citing various interviews, that Lagarde was worried Binance would embed the dominance of dollar-based stablecoins in Europe, instead of encouraging euro counterparts.

Binance is the world’s biggest crypto exchange and billions of dollars in stablecoins are traded on its platform daily. 

A controversial company, Binance and its CEO, Chanpeng Zhao, in 2023 pleaded guilty to anti-money-laundering violations and paid a record $4.3 billion fine.

Binance in June said it was still working to pursue MiCA authorization in another EU Member State.

This post European Central Bank President Blocked Binance’s EU Entry: Report first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine – Read More

Bitcoin Magazine

CFTC Sends Proposal To Regulate Crypto Transactions Following Clarity Act Fail

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission on Thursday sent a proposal to the White House to regulate crypto transactions and markets. 

It isn’t clear what the regulations will look like from the post on the Office of Management and Budget’s website. The proposal is titled “Regulation Crypto Asset Transactions and Regulation Crypto Asset Markets.”

The CFTC’s move comes after lawmakers blocked the long-awaited crypto legislation Clarity Act on Tuesday. Despite the law not advancing, both the CFTC and Securities and Exchange Commission have said they would go ahead with crypto rulemaking anyway. 

CFTC Chair Mike Selig said on Wednesday that while the Clarity Act didn’t move forward, the watchdog would still help U.S. President Trump “get the job done” in regulating the crypto space. 

“The outcome of yesterday’s Senate vote was unfortunate,” Selig wrote on X, adding that the CFTC was “locked in and ready to ship its rules for the new frontier of finance.”

Before the procedural vote on the legislation this week, Selig had said would proceed with rulemaking whether or not the Clarity Act is enacted — with the aim of finalizing rules before the administration’s term is out.

Senators last year approved Selig as the regulator’s chair. Formerly chief counsel at the SEC’s Crypto Task Force, Selig was described by White House’s Crypto and AI Tsar, David Sacks, as “instrumental in driving forward the President’s crypto agenda” 

President Trump campaigned on a ticket to help the crypto space after regulators under the previous administration hit digital asset businesses with lawsuits — mostly for allegedly selling unregistered securities. 

Since Trump became president, the SEC and CFTC have taken a much friendlier approach to watchdogging the space. 

The CFTC isn’t the only regulator going ahead with rulemaking: the SEC earlier this week approved tokenized stocks trading. In August, it also proposed its own framework for crypto asset offerings, pressing ahead while the landmark legislation stalled. 

President Trump last month urged lawmakers to pass the Clarity Act, calling the legislation “very powerful” — but Republicans said that Democrats were deliberately holding it back.  

Democrats mainly took issue with the ethics side of the bill. Trump received backing from major industry players while campaigning and since becoming president, his family has made money from digital asset ventures. 

Some lawmakers have alleged conflicts of interest. The White House has always denied any wrongdoing. 

A new draft of the bill started circulating in July tackling the issue of ethics and banning officials from making money from crypto. But some Democrats said it didn’t go far enough. 

The Clarity Act wants to formally divide oversight between regulators, distinguishing which digital assets are securities, commodities or stablecoins. 

This post CFTC Sends Proposal To Regulate Crypto Transactions Following Clarity Act Fail first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine – Read More

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin Price Surges Over $81,000 Despite Clarity Act Fail and Interest Rate Hike

Bitcoin’s price on Friday shot above $81,000 — despite a week of setbacks for the crypto industry. 

The biggest coin was recently trading for $80,982, after jumping as high as $81,055 at one point Friday morning in New York. Over the past 24 hours, it has risen by nearly 6%. 

Its surge comes after lawmakers on Tuesday blocked long-awaited crypto legislation, the Clarity Act, and the Federal Reserve on Wednesday hiked interest rates. 

Digital asset industry bigwigs had long called for clear rules to regulate the crypto space and the Clarity Act — which wants to divide oversight between regulators — aimed to do that. But lawmakers blocked the landmark digital asset market structure bill in a procedural vote. 

And the Federal Reserve increased borrowing costs for the first time due to skyrocketing inflation in the U.S. The central bank’s chair, Kevin Warsh, said that price stability in the U.S. was the Fed’s number one priority. 

“The plain fact is that inflation is too high, and has been for too long,” Warsh said. “This summer’s inflation readings do not tell me that underlying trends have meaningfully improved.”

Bitcoin has in the past done well in a low interest rate environment because it means there is more liquidity to trade the asset. 

While Bitcoin’s price dipped initially news of the Clarity Act blockage and Fed’s move, it shot up on Friday. 

Bitcoin exchange-traded funds in the U.S. have so far this week experienced net negative flows, with investors cashing out nearly $427 million from the vehicles, according to Farside Investors data. 

Flows on Thursday turned positive, with investors chucking nearly $160 million at the funds following two days of consecutive outflows. 

In a research note Thursday, asset manager Grayscale said that it didn’t expect bitcoin’s price to be hurt by the Fed’s decision because the move reflects a mid-cycle adjustment, not a cyclical change. 

And despite lawmakers blocking the Clarity Act, regulators like the SEC are already pushing ahead with pro-crypto regulation. 

This post Bitcoin Price Surges Over $81,000 Despite Clarity Act Fail and Interest Rate Hike first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine – Read More

Bitcoin Magazine

Treasury Sanctions Iranian Crypto Exchange BitBank Over Bitcoin Transfers to IRGC

The U.S. is continuing to target Iran’s use of bitcoin. 

In a Thursday statement, the U.S. Department of the Treasury designated BitBank, an Iranian crypto exchange, as part of Operation Economic Outcast — the Trump Administration’s whole-of-government economic campaign against the Islamic Republic of Iran and its enablers. 

The U.S. has sanctioned Iran for decades. This year, the Middle Eastern country has stepped up its use of cryptocurrencies — including bitcoin — in order to skirt around economic penalties. 

“Today’s designations of Iranian digital asset infrastructure make perfectly clear that efforts to finance the Iranian regime using cryptocurrencies are not beyond OFAC’s reach,” Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent said in a statement. 

“If you support the Iranian regime, the Department of the Treasury will sanction you.”

The sanctions target designated Iranian financier Babak Zanjani, along with its software developer, Pishtaz Simorgh Electronic Trade Company, and three of Zanjani’s associates: Hossein Ali Zaker Hossein, Mohammad Mahdi Zaker Hossein, and Seyed Adel Heidari.

Since June, the Iranian Hormuz Safe Marine Services Authority has used BitBank to move bitcoin to the Iranian regime, according to the Treasury. 

Thursday’s sanctions aim to hit the “architecture Zanjani built to launder funds,” it added. 

“The Department of the Treasury will continue to not only target the Iranian digital asset ecosystem, but also international entities and actors which help facilitate it,” the statement continued. 

Iran started a bitcoin-backed insurance service for its counties shipping companies earlier this year.

The U.S. in July said that it had frozen crypto linked to the Iranian regime, mostly in the form of Tether’s stablecoin. 

Stablecoins like Tether’s USDT can be frozen by the company that issues the asset. But bitcoin, being decentralized and having no single issuer, cannot. 

The U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control in July said Iran had been dodging sanctions by accepting pay in bitcoin from ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz. 

OFAC said at the time that Hormuz Safe, developed by Iran’s Ministry of Economy, “accepts payment in Bitcoin and other digital assets” so it can bypass sanctions. 

This post Treasury Sanctions Iranian Crypto Exchange BitBank Over Bitcoin Transfers to IRGC first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine – Read More

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin Price Unlikely To Be Bothered by Interest Rate Hike: Grayscale

The Federal Reserve hiked interest rates for the first time since 2023 on Wednesday and it sent the bitcoin price — briefly — all over the place. 

But then it settled and currently sits a modest 1% higher over a 24-hour period. 

And according to asset manager Grayscale’s crypto research team, bitcoin is unlikely to be bothered by the Fed’s decision. 

“We believe yesterday’s move was a mid-cycle adjustment, not a cyclical change,” wrote the firm’s head of research, Zach Pandl, in a Thursday note. 

“And we doubt the one or two rate hikes expected for 2026 will lead to much change in capital allocation.”

Bitcoin has — in the past but not always — done well in a low interest rate environment. And when the Federal Reserve has in the past increased borrowing costs, the price of the leading digital asset has slid. 

That’s because low interest rates means more liquidity for investors to take risks and buy assets like bitcoin. 

Pandl added that when the Fed in 2022 started ramping up interest rates to contain inflation, it “probably weighed on the price of bitcoin” because it “meaningfully affected the opportunity cost of holding non-interest-bearing assets.” 

But this time feels more like 1997, argued Pandl, when the Federal Reserve did a one off hike and the Nasdaq kept moving higher.

Bitcoin’s price recently stood at close to $76,581, up 18% over the past 30 days. The coin  in August benefited from news that the U.S. Treasury would at least double the size of its liquidity-support buyback operations.

The U.S. is currently in the grips of an affordability crisis and inflation is hurting households as oil prices surge. 

Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh said the central bank was focused on bringing down inflation. 

“The plain fact is that inflation is too high, and has been for too long,” he said on Wednesday. 

U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly said that he wants interest rates to be lower. Writing on his Truth Social platform on Wednesday, he said: “Interest Rates in the United States should be 1%, or less, because we are the Best Credit in the World — BY FAR.”

This post Bitcoin Price Unlikely To Be Bothered by Interest Rate Hike: Grayscale first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine – Read More

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin ETFs Could Triple Gold Counterparts as Asset Matures: Expert

Bitcoin exchange-traded funds could be three times bigger than their gold counterparts as younger investors grow up, an ETF expert has said. 

Speaking to Bitcoin Magazine TV on Thursday, Bloomberg senior ETF analyst, Eric Balchunas, said that while bitcoin’s price is currently volatile, things would change in the future. 

Bitcoin ETFs debuted in 2024 after a decade of denials from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The ETFs had the most successful launch in the history of the products and currently manage nearly $100 billion in assets, according to Coinglass data. 

“I do believe the Bitcoin ETFs will triple gold in assets,” said Balchunas. 

“I always say Bitcoin is like gold as a teenager — you know, gold is 5,000 years old, it was mentioned 450 times in the Bible. I mean that’s old, and Bitcoin is 17 years old.” 

Balchunas went on to say that younger generations could end up being drawn to Bitcoin as the government continues to spend wildly and things become to expensive. 

He said that right now, Generation Z is rebelling against government deficits and inflation by voting for socialist politicians, but Bitcoin might be a better bet — because the government can’t confiscate it. 

One of Bitcoin’s selling points is its censorship resistance but investors appear to be more focused on buying the asset as a way of hedging against currency debasement. 

The so-called debasement trade was hot last year and is becoming popular again in 2026 as investors buy non-yielding assets like gold and bitcoin while the dollar becomes weaker. 

Balchunas added that as bitcoin’s price becomes less volatile, big institutions will be more interested in buying the asset as a store of value. 

Bitcoin in 2025 has its least volatile year in its short history. 

“As that volatility and correlation get closer to gold — look out,” he said. 

“I think that’s when you have the inflection moment where even the big institutions are like, okay, it’s finally ready for me to use as a sort of reliable store of value, possibly even a safe haven and an alternative.”

This post Bitcoin ETFs Could Triple Gold Counterparts as Asset Matures: Expert first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine – Read More

Bitcoin Magazine

Peter Schiff: “The Fed Has Already Lost The Battle Against Inflation” & BTC vs GOLD Debate

Peter Schiff says the bond market didn’t break recently, it broke in 2020, and everything since has been a slow unwind. Across this conversation with Grace Remington and Sean Hagan, he connects rising Treasury yields, the Fed’s expected rate decision, the dollar’s loss of purchasing power, and the central bank rush into gold. He argues that a stock selloff driven by higher rates would be deeply bearish for Bitcoin and the broader crypto market, and that political capital in Washington has already turned against it. The episode ends with Schiff and the hosts going head to head on whether anything actually backs Bitcoin.

00:00 — Peter Schiff says the bond market already broke in 2020
01:44 — How long the Treasury bear market could realistically last
04:18 — What Schiff would enact to actually bring inflation down
06:32 — Spending cuts, higher rates, and the recession nobody will accept
07:39 — Are we in the early stages of a dollar crisis?
08:26 — Rate hike odds and whether Warsh surprises the market
10:51 — Why Schiff calls it a cosmetic hike with no credibility behind it
12:33 — Why gold ran to 5,500 while Bitcoin lagged 23% off its highs
14:20 — Bitcoin priced in gold and the case that it peaked in 2021
17:29 — Tokenized gold vs Bitcoin: counterparty risk and what backs money

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this show are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of BTC Inc., Bitcoin Magazine, or any affiliated entities. This content is provided for informational and educational purposes only and should not be construed as investment, legal, tax, or accounting advice. Nothing contained in this show constitutes a solicitation, recommendation, endorsement, or offer to buy or sell any securities or financial instruments. Viewers should consult their own advisors before making financial or business decisions.

This post Peter Schiff: “The Fed Has Already Lost The Battle Against Inflation” & BTC vs GOLD Debate first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Patrick Green.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine – Read More

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin Price Wobbles Before Settling After Fed Raises Rates 

Bitcoin’s price swung before settling largely unmoved over a 24-hour period after the Federal Reserve hiked interest rates — as expected — for the first time since 2023. 

The leading cryptocurrency was recently priced at nearly $75,813 after dropping as low as $75,355 in the hour after the U.S. central bank gave its decision to increase the benchmark federal funds rate to a range of 3.75% to 4%. 

Over a seven-day period, the coin is down nearly 4%. 

Traders had bet there was a more than 90% chance that the Fed would raise interest rates ahead of its September meeting. Major Bitcoin trades therefore likely happened before Wednesday. 

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh didn’t reveal much about the central bank’s next moves but made it clear that price stability in the U.S. was its number one priority. 

“The decision we made today was a sober decision, serious decision, responsible decision, one that we have been preparing for and thinking about in my 110 or 120 days here,” Warsh said. 

He added: “The plain fact is that inflation is too high, and has been for too long. This summer’s inflation readings do not tell me that underlying trends have meaningfully improved.”

Wash — who has previously praised Bitcoin — said last month in his first major speech as head of the U.S. central bank that inflation was too high and had to be brought down. 

The new chair is seemingly going against President Donald Trump’s wishes; the president has repeatedly called for lower interest rates and even threatened to fire the ex-Chair of the Federal Reserve for refusing to do so. 

In a post on his Truth Social platform last week, the president wrote: “We should have the LOWEST RATE of any country in the World, like ‘the old days.’”

When asked by reporters about what he would say to the president, Wash replied: “I’ve got nothing for you on a discussion with the president.”

Bitcoin typically does well in a low interest rate environment because there is more liquidity to buy the asset. 

The U.S. is currently in the midst of an affordability crisis and war in the Middle East has pushed up the price of oil, in turn compounding the problem as the cost of everyday goods in the world’s largest economy rises.

This post Bitcoin Price Wobbles Before Settling After Fed Raises Rates  first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine – Read More

Bitcoin Magazine

CFTC Chairman Says Agency Will Write Crypto Rules After Clarity Act Vote Fails

Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chair Mike Selig has said that the top regulator will go ahead and use its powers to advance crypto legislation despite the Clarity Act being blocked. 

In a Wednesday statement released on X, Selig said that the regulator would still help U.S. President Trump “get the job done.” 

Lawmakers blocked the Clarity Act on Tuesday in a procedural vote, with the long-awaited legislation missing the 60 votes needed to advance it. The bill aims to formally divide oversight between regulators, distinguishing which digital assets are securities, commodities or stablecoins. 

“Americans deserve regulatory clarity, legal certainty, and consumer protections in crypto asset markets,” Selig wrote. 

“President Trump promised to deliver a future-proof crypto asset regulatory market structure one way or the other, and we will help him get the job done using our existing statutory authorities.

“The U.S. is and will remain the crypto capital of the world. The CFTC is locked in and ready to ship its rules for the new frontier of finance.”

President Donald Trump last month urged lawmakers to pass the Clarity Act, calling the legislation “very powerful” — but Republicans said that Democrats were deliberately holding it back.  

Regulators are now more crypto-friendly since President Trump appointed them and took the White House and are widely expected to continue pushing rules that help the crypto space. 

The Securities and Exchange Commission last month proposed its own framework for crypto asset offerings, pressing ahead despite a vote on the Clarity Act stalling. 

Despite being passed by the House of Representatives last year, the Clarity Act was in a deadlock for most of this year after the banking lobby clashed with lawmakers and crypto businesses over whether platforms like Coinbase should be able to pay customers yield. 

Some lawmakers have sought to change wording in the bill regarding ethics, and a new bill started circulating in July. The draft bans government officials from promoting and making money from crypto. 

But other Democratic lawmakers said it still fell short; a number of pro-crypto Republicans accused Democrats of deliberately playing politics and delaying the bill. 

This post CFTC Chairman Says Agency Will Write Crypto Rules After Clarity Act Vote Fails first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine – Read More

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin, BTC-Related Stocks Tumble After Senate Blocks Clarity Act 

Bitcoin’s price tumbled — along with crypto-related stocks — following the blockage of the long-awaited Clarity Act. 

The price of the leading cryptocurrency recently stood at $75,939, down 4% over the past day, after dropping as low as $75,038 at one point on Tuesday. 

Lawmakers blocked the landmark digital asset market structure bill in a procedural vote Tuesday. Major companies in the digital asset space have long called for clear rules to be put in place to regulate the industry. 

Bitcoin wasn’t the only asset that dropped: BTC-related stocks such as Coinbase (NASDAQ: COIN) and Strategy (MSTR) were also down. 

America’s biggest crypto exchange’s stock dropped by more than 10%; Strategy, the largest corporate holder of bitcoin slid by over 5%. 

Major publicly traded bitcoin miners also dropped in price, with MARA, CleanSpark, and Core Scientific all slipping by 5% or more over the past day. 

Senators mostly voted against advancing the legislation — 49 for and 50 against — that the digital asset industry has long called for. 

The bill aims to formally divide oversight between regulators, distinguishing which digital assets are securities, commodities or stablecoins. 

President Donald Trump last month urged lawmakers to pass it, helping spur a bitcoin rally. But Republicans warned for months that Democrats were deliberately holding it back. 

And hold it back they did: anti-crypto senator Elizabeth Warren warned congress against voting for the bill on Tuesday, slamming the bill as “a massive risk to families.”

While Senator Bernie Sanders wrote on X that the bill was “corrupt.” 

Lawmakers had a problem with the bill because they said it unfairly allowed Trump to make money from the crypto industry. The president’s family has cashed in with numerous crypto ventures since Trump took office but the White House has always denied any wrongdoing. 

“Crypto billionaires have spent nearly $300M on the midterm elections,” added Sanders. 

“Meanwhile, Trump and his family have pocketed more than $1.4B from crypto deals.”

Pro-crypto senator Cynthia Lummis slammed Democrats for blocking the bill. 

Writing on X, the Republican said: “The once-proud Democratic party is anti-consumer and pro-illicit finance, anti-ethics, anti-free enterprise, anti-worker, anti-livable wage jobs, and pro-socialism. The Democrats are now anti-American.” 

This post Bitcoin, BTC-Related Stocks Tumble After Senate Blocks Clarity Act  first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine – Read More

Bitcoin Magazine

Strive’s Matt Cole: Bitcoin is Primed for 30% Growth into 2030

What happens when the Fed and Treasury finally step in to suppress long-end rates? Matt Cole says the dollar becomes the release valve and scarce assets rip. In this interview with Grace Remington and Sean Hagan, the Strive CEO lays out his three-part macro thesis on the dollar, long-end treasury rates, and Bitcoin reclaiming its role as the fastest horse against gold. He also shares his base case of roughly 50% annual Bitcoin returns into 2030.

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this show are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of BTC Inc., Bitcoin Magazine, or any affiliated entities. This content is provided for informational and educational purposes only and should not be construed as investment, legal, tax, or accounting advice. Nothing contained in this show constitutes a solicitation, recommendation, endorsement, or offer to buy or sell any securities or financial instruments. Viewers should consult their own advisors before making financial or business decisions.

This post Strive’s Matt Cole: Bitcoin is Primed for 30% Growth into 2030 first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Patrick Green.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine – Read More

Bitcoin Magazine

Lightning Lands on BitBox — And It Doesn’t Ask for a New Seed Phrase

Bitcoin wallet manufacturer BitBox is putting Lightning in users’ pockets. 

Owners of any BitBox hardware wallet can create a Lightning hot wallet inside the mobile BitBoxApp, fund it directly from their on-chain balance and pay invoices without bouncing between apps, wallets or third-party services, the company announced Tuesday. 

And users don’t need a new recovery phrase. The Lightning wallet is derived from the BitBox backup they already have, so there are no extra words to write down — the two wallets stay distinct. 

The Lightning side runs as a hot wallet built for small amounts and everyday spending — coffee, invoices, a quick transfer — while long-term savings stay locked behind the hardware device. 

Inside the BitBoxApp, users can scan and pay Lightning invoices, send and receive bitcoin, claim their own Lightning address, top up from their on-chain wallet, and sweep funds back again.

Under the hood, the feature runs on the Breez SDK, which now counts BitBox among more than 100 integration partners. Spark handles the plumbing that has long kept casual users off Lightning — no node to run, no channels to open, no liquidity to babysit. Custody stays with the user throughout.

Breez in August debuted Glow, an app that allows developers to see what’s working under the hood with the Lightning wallet so they can build their own products.

This post Lightning Lands on BitBox — And It Doesn’t Ask for a New Seed Phrase first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine – Read More

Bitcoin Magazine

Swiss Bitcoin Pay Shuts Down Servers After Data Breach

Another day, another data breach. 

Swiss Bitcoin Pay, a non-custodial bitcoin payment processor, said that it had to temporarily shut down its servers following a data breach on Monday. 

The Neuchâtel, Switzerland-based company said that user funds were safe but customer email addresses, bitcoin addresses and IBANs, transaction history, and hashed passwords were believed to be breached. 

The announcement comes amid a run of breaches hitting bitcoin and fintech firms. Revolut confirmed last week that it handed customer passports, driver’s licenses, verification selfies and transaction histories to an unauthorized party that sent fraudulent requests from a legitimate government agency’s email domain. 

And top hardware wallet manufacturer Trezor last week warned that a data breach at the third-party marketing platform it uses for sending newsletters was leading criminals to target customers with phishing attacks. 

“A malicious user has likely gained access to Swiss Bitcoin Pay’s internal systems …As a precaution, we are temporarily shutting down our servers while we investigate and secure our infrastructure.” Swiss Bitcoin Pay said on Monday. 

The company added that; “User funds are safe, and any amounts owed to users will be fully returned.”

Swiss Bitcoin Pay did not immediately respond to Bitcoin Magazine’s request for comment. 

The company lets businesses accept Bitcoin payments quickly and easily using both on-chain transactions and the Lightning Network. 

Criminals have increasingly been targeting data in 2026. Scammers in January were able to get hold of customer information via crypto wallet Ledger’s payment processor Global-e to send phishing emails. 

Crypto wallet provider SafePal last month also announced a data breach that involved ​unauthorized access to about 39,798 customers’ order information, ‌including personal details such as names, addresses and purchase data.

This post Swiss Bitcoin Pay Shuts Down Servers After Data Breach first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine – Read More

Bitcoin Magazine

Mallers: Bitcoin and AI Could Give Humans Back Their Time

Bitcoin — along with artificial intelligence — could help humans get their time back to create again, according to Strike CEO Jack Mallers. 

The reason: hard money doesn’t rob people of their time and energy and truly rewards people time and energy well spent, Mallers argued on Bitcoin Magazine’s debut TV show on Monday. 

“Money broadly is our time and energy in an abstracted form — it is the market good that represents the effort, the labor,” Mallers said. 

“If the money is bad, it’s very destructive to our time and energy: It robs us of our time and energy. You have to work longer and harder to get a house; you have to work longer and harder to get a vacation. You have to work longer and harder to have hours to pursue your artistic interests.”

“And if the money is good, it actually gives you and rewards back time and energy,” he continued, adding that Bitcoin and AI could free humans from the “drudgery” of bad money.

Mallers went on to cite the example of the creators of the airplane, the Wright brothers, who came up with their invention when the U.S. was on a gold standard. 

Mallers’ comments come following Bitcoin’s best run in years. Bitcoin gained about 25% in August, its strongest month of 2026 and its first positive August since 2021, closing the month near $78,000.

The run followed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s move to expand long-dated bond buybacks, which pulled yields down and triggered billions in short liquidations.

Since the news, the so-called debasement trade has been back in the headlines again: when traders buy assets like gold or bitcoin to hedge against a currency losing its value. 

The dollar slid on the Treasury buyback news and an announcement the same week that U.S. debt had hit the $40 trillion mark. 

Speaking about the state of the U.S. economy, Mallers added: “This level of debt is unsustainable, so when people debate, oh well, what if they hike rates? What if they cut rates? It doesn’t matter: it’s all inflationary and it’s all untenable.”

Data on Friday revealed that the consumer price index, excluding food and energy, climbed 0.3% in August from a month earlier — higher than expected.  

The U.S. is currently in the grips of an affordability crisis, and it’s widely expected that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates this week to tame inflation as oil prices have surged. 

This post Mallers: Bitcoin and AI Could Give Humans Back Their Time first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine – Read More

Bitcoin Magazine

Lummis Credits Trump for Ethics Deal as Clarity Act Faces Tuesday Vote

Republican senator Cynthia Lummis has praised U.S. President Donald Trump for agreeing “to the toughest ethics restrictions” in order to get the Clarity Act over the line. 

The pro-crypto senator wrote on X Monday that Trump had agreed to tighter laws which give state attorneys generals standing to sue to enforce the conflict-of-interest rules on federal officials.

Lawmakers will vote on the Clarity Act tomorrow. The bill aims to formally divide oversight between regulators, distinguishing which digital assets are securities, commodities or stablecoins — rules crypto industry executives have long called for. 

“Back in July, Trump voluntarily put himself, the VP, every federally elected official, judges, and their spouses under the strictest ethics rules this country has ever seen. Most people in Washington never would’ve offered that. Democrats still wanted independent, outside enforcement, not DOJ alone — so Trump went back to the table and gave more,” Lummis said. 

She added: “A no vote tomorrow kills the toughest ethics reform this country has ever put on the books, kills consumer protections for every American holding digital assets, and hands the future of this industry to our foreign competitors.” 

Alongside senators John Boozman and Tim Scott, Lummis released a new draft of the Clarity Act on Sunday night that gives attorneys enforcement new powers. 

An updated draft of the Clarity Act banning government officials from promoting or making money from crypto started circulating in July but Democrats wanted more work on it.  

President Donald Trump campaigned on a ticket to help the crypto space but some Washington lawmakers have criticized the way the Trump family has profited from digital asset ventures, such as the President’s memecoin, $TRUMP, and World Liberty Financial project. 

Trump and the White House have always denied any conflicts of interest. 

Speaking in an interview with Punchbowl News in August, about the Clarity Act and ethics, President Trump pointed out the Democrats have also made money from stock trading. 

Though passed by the House of Representatives last year, the Clarity Act has been stalled this year, mostly because the banking lobby clashed with crypto companies over paying customers stablecoin yield. 

Republicans like Lummis have accused Democrats of deliberately holding back the bill. 

This post Lummis Credits Trump for Ethics Deal as Clarity Act Faces Tuesday Vote first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine – Read More

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin’s ‘Unusual Mix’: Bearish Inflation Print, Bullish Buyback Failure

Bitcoin’s path higher just got harder in the short term, but the setup further out may be improving, according to a new report. 

In a Friday note, European asset manager CoinShares’ Head of Research, James Butterfill, said firmer-than-expected core inflation raises the odds of tighter Fed policy and could cap bitcoin below $80,000 for now. 

But the longer-term case, he argued, rests on the U.S. Treasury’s bond buyback programme failing to bring down long-end yields — a failure that could ultimately feed the debasement narrative that has supported both bitcoin and gold.

“The result is therefore a somewhat unusual policy mix for Bitcoin,” the report read. “Today’s CPI data is negative at the margin, increasing the probability of tighter monetary policy and potentially limiting the immediate upside. 

“But the apparent failure of the Treasury’s current buying programme increases the likelihood of much more substantial intervention further ahead.”

It continued: “If that happens, it could become one of the more powerful medium-term catalysts for Bitcoin.”

Data on Friday revealed that the consumer price index, excluding food and energy, climbed 0.3% in August from a month earlier — higher than expected. 

According to CME’s FedWatch tool, traders think there is a 85% chance interest rates will be higher after the Federal Reserve meets next week. Bitcoin has typically performed well in a low interest rate environment. 

But the U.S. Treasury’s expanded bond buyback programme has so far failed to materially suppress long-term yields. 

If yields stay stubbornly high, Butterfill said, pressure will build on Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to escalate to a much larger, “bazooka-style” buying programme aimed at forcing borrowing costs down.

Bitcoin in August had one of its best runs in years after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced the department would double the size of its long-dated bond buybacks. 

The announcement and subsequent price surge has led some to say the much talked-about debasement trade is back. The so-called debasement trade is when investors buy an asset as a way to hedge against a currency losing value. 

Bitcoin and gold have both benefited as part of the trade as the dollar weakens. 

This post Bitcoin’s ‘Unusual Mix’: Bearish Inflation Print, Bullish Buyback Failure first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine – Read More

Bitcoin Magazine

Blockstream Tells Hackers To Return Remaining Bitcoin Stolen in Liquid Theft

Bitcoin infrastructure firm Blockstream has refused to negotiate further with hackers who last week stole 4,000 bitcoins from its Liquid network. 

Writing on X Friday, Blockstream said that the hackers still had time to return the funds before the company would work with law enforcement. 

White-hat hackers on Sunday withdrew about $320 million from the federation wallet that backs Liquid, a sidechain by Blockstream. After negotiating with Blockstream, they returned most of the funds but kept 598.5 coins worth over $46 million — demanding it as ransom. 

“Blockstream will not pay a ransom for the return of stolen funds,” the post read. “Taking assets without authorization and withholding their return is a crime, not responsible disclosure. It is not white-hat activity. It is theft.”

It added: “We will work with law enforcement, exchanges, service providers, forensic specialists, and other relevant parties to trace and recover the assets and identify those responsible.”

“We will not pay for the return of stolen property. We will not abandon our users. The Bitcoin community will not stop pursuing the funds.”

Liquid, or L-BTC, is a layer-2 created by Blockstream that allows users to fast move assets backed 1:1 with bitcoin. One of the assets, LBTC, is a token backed by bitcoin that allows for quick settlement — a bit like the Lightning Network. 

Hackers were able to get the funds by exploiting an inflation bug on the Liquid sidechain to create over 4,000 LBTC that did not exist before and cash them out for real, on-chain bitcoins. 

The hackers then had an exchange with Blockstream via messages written into Bitcoin blocks. 

In one message, the white hats wrote: “Please fix the bug first. The chain is under risk at latest commit right now. Make sure every node is patched. Then we will transfer the money back safely after confirming the fix.”

In the latest message, the hackers slammed Blocksteam as “delusional, greedy, and arrogant,” and threatened to reveal all of Blockstream’s encrypted messages in the exchange unless the company allowed thieves to keep 10% of the bitcoins. 

“You SHALL pay 10% using your own money as bug bounty or you will cause all your holders a 15% loss for your irresponsibility and stinginess,” the message read. 

The Bitcoin community is still reeling after hackers in July were able to steal over 1,800 bitcoins worth close to $140 million from Coldcard wallet holders. 

Users of the popular hardware wallet, created by Coinkite, were targeted because the product’s manufacturer did not use a true random number generator, allowing hackers to essentially guess investor seedphrases. 

This post Blockstream Tells Hackers To Return Remaining Bitcoin Stolen in Liquid Theft first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine – Read More

Bitcoin Magazine

Italy’s Second Biggest Bank UniCredit Is Weighting up Crypto Custody: Report

Italy’s second largest bank is considering expanding into digital asset offerings, including custody, according to reports. 

According to a Friday Bloomberg report citing people familiar with the matter, Milan-based UniCredit is selecting a technology provider that would allow it to build the infrastructure needed to hold digital assets and facilitate their buying and selling. 

Bloomberg’s reporting added that tokenized investment products and fixed-income securities, the use of stablecoins and exposure to cryptocurrencies were all on the cards. 

The news comes as other banks in Europe expand crypto offerings. Spain moved first on retail, with BBVA rolling out bitcoin trading and custody to all customers via its app, using its own custody infrastructure rather than a third party; Santander’s Openbank followed with its own trading service.

Cecabank — a Spanish custodian with over €400bn under management that acts as backbone for 100+ financial institutions — went live with crypto custody in June via a partnership with Bit2Me.

And in Germany, Deutsche Bank is building custody with Bitpanda’s technology arm, while Taurus and DZ Bank got BaFin approval in January for its meinKrypto platform. 

New regulation in the European Union — Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) — gives banks a legal definition, a supervisor, and a familiar set of obligations to launch crypto services. 

UniCredit is one 37 lenders across 15 European countries working together to create a company called Qivalis with the aim of issuing a euro-denominated stablecoin.

Last year, the bank said it was offering professional clients a structured product tied to BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust exchange-traded fund, with full protection against losses.

This post Italy’s Second Biggest Bank UniCredit Is Weighting up Crypto Custody: Report first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine – Read More

Bitcoin Magazine

Ringleader of $245M Crypto Theft Pleads Guilty 

The man behind one of the biggest bitcoin thefts in history this week pleaded guilty.

Malone Lam, 22, a Miami resident from Singapore, on Tuesday admitted his role as ringleader of the international crime group which stole 4,100 bitcoins — worth over $230 million at the time — to fund a life of luxury. 

The U.S. Department of Justice said that from October 2023 and through at least May 2025, Lam and others hacked databases to steal crypto users’ information and con them into providing user logins and private keys. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies worth $245 million were taken in the theft. 

On one occasion, a co-defendant broke into a residence in New Mexico and stole a hardware wallet while Lam monitored the victim’s movements by hacking their iCloud account.

“This defendant led an international network that preyed on victims through deception, invaded their privacy, and stole hundreds of millions of dollars in cryptocurrency,” U.S. Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro said in a statement. 

“If you build a cybercrime empire, we will find you, dismantle your operation, and hold you accountable,” Attorney Pirro added. 

The DOJ said: “The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act conspiracy used social engineering and occasional home break-ins to obtain information that allowed the conspirators to drain their victims’ cryptocurrency wallets.” 

The crimes started after a group of online gamers became friends before working together to commit the cybercrimes, the indictment read.

Lam and co-defendants laundered the stolen bitcoin and spent it on bottle service parties, private jet rentals, security guards, luxury handbags and watches, and properties in Los Angeles, the Hamptons, and Miami. 

The defendants would spend up to $500,000 a night on parties and give away designer handbags worth tens of thousands of dollars, Tuesday’s announcement read. 

Lam was arrested in 2024 at his rental home in Miami. 

This post Ringleader of $245M Crypto Theft Pleads Guilty  first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine – Read More

Bitcoin Magazine

Trezor Reveals Another Data Breach After Scammers Target Marketing Platform 

Trezor has warned that a data breach at the third-party marketing platform it uses for sending newsletters is leading criminals to target customers with phishing attacks. 

The top hardware wallet manufacturer said Wednesday that an unauthorized actor got access to Brevo’s system and sent emails to 347,000 Trezor customers. Brevo is a platform businesses use to send customer communications. 

Scammers managed to use Trezor’s domain name to send the email, making the phishing attempt all the more believable. The email contained a malicious link asking users to download an app and enter their wallet backup. 

The news comes after Trezor last month announced that data from 11,742 customers had been exposed after its third-party fulfillment partner, ShipMonk, was targeted. 

It then said last week that an additional 67,000 U.S. customers had their names, emails, phone numbers, shipping addresses and order numbers leaked in the breach. 

“We took down the domain at the DNS level within 20 minutes, preventing the link from working for anyone else and limiting access to 2,500 people who had clicked it before we took it down,” Trezor said on Wednesday. 

“These addresses might be potentially used for other phishing attacks in the future. No other Trezor system was touched,” Trezor added.

“We have suspended the Brevo account to stop further email distribution.”

Trezor reminded users that it never asks customers to ask for their wallet backups. 

Criminals have been targeting data this year, with scammers getting hold of customer information via crypto wallet Ledger’s payment processor Global-e to send phishing emails. 

Crypto wallet provider SafePal last month also announced a data breach that involved ​unauthorized access to about 39,798 customers’ order information, ‌including personal details such as names, addresses and purchase data.

This post Trezor Reveals Another Data Breach After Scammers Target Marketing Platform  first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine – Read More

Bitcoin Magazine

Updated Crypto Clarity Act Starts Circulating Days Before Key Vote 

A new draft of the long-awaited crypto Clarity Act has dropped with amendments.

As first reported by Eleanor Terrett from Crypto in America and Punchbowl’s Brendan Pedersen, the updated bill contains changes including requiring non-decentralized DeFi protocols to register with the CFTC, and changes around how credit unions deal in crypto, according to reporters. 

The specifics include that a decentralized finance app fails the test of being such a protocol test if someone can control or materially alter its functionality, if it doesn’t run solely on pre-established transparent encoded rules, or if someone can restrict or censor its use.

It also adds that a federal credit union may use a digital asset or distributed ledger system to perform, provide, or deliver any activity, function, product, or service it is otherwise authorized by law to perform.

Lawmakers were hoping a crucial vote on the crypto market structure bill would go ahead in August before their five-week recess. It was delayed and the Senate will now vote on it on September 15. 

The bill is not bipartisan yet, according to the reporters. Senate Republicans started circulating the updated legislation on Thursday. 

The Clarity Act drafts a framework to formally divide oversight between regulators, distinguishing which digital assets are securities, commodities or stablecoins. Crypto industry executives have long called for such rules to be in place. 

Though passed by the House of Representatives last July, it has been stalled this year, mostly because the banking lobby clashed with crypto companies over paying customers stablecoin yield. 

A new draft tackling the issue of ethics started circulating in July, banning government officials from promoting or making money from crypto — something Democrats have criticized the Trump family for doing. 

Despite the changes, a group of Democrats said the bill fell short and demanded amendments to the bill. 

Pro-crypto lawmakers have blasted Democratic politicians who they think are deliberately holding back the bill.  

President Donald Trump has urged lawmakers to get the legislation over the line. In August, he said that in order for the U.S. to remain the “undisputed leader in Bitcoin and crypto,” they had to pass the “very, very powerful legislation.”

This post Updated Crypto Clarity Act Starts Circulating Days Before Key Vote  first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine – Read More

Bitcoin Magazine

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent ‘Strongly Urges’ Senate To Pass Clarity Act

U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent urged lawmakers to move forward with the crypto Clarity Act when they return from recess next week. 

Writing on X Wednesday, Bessent said that the bill would stop “bad actors” from exploiting important digital asset tech. 

Lawmakers were hoping a crucial vote on the long-awaited crypto market structure bill would go ahead in August before their five-week recess. But it was delayed and the Senate will now vote on it next week. 

“When the Senate returns from August recess, I strongly urge everyone to remain at the negotiating table, agree to the motion to proceed, and continue the legislative process,” he said. 

“Failing to do so would send a troubling signal to our allies and adversaries alike that America is unwilling to lead on the future of digital assets and willing to forgo enhanced national security tools to combat their misuse.”

Just in July, Bessent said lawmakers had to pass the Clarity Act if they wanted to be “on the side of American Exceptionalism” — and quoted Satoshi Nakamoto in another social media post. 

“America will lead or America won’t,” he wrote at the time “It’s not more complicated than that. I believe Satoshi once said it best: ‘If you don’t believe me or don’t get it, I don’t have time to try to convince you, sorry.’”

First passed last year by the House of Representatives, the Clarity Act drafts a framework to formally divide oversight between regulators, distinguishing which digital assets are securities, commodities or stablecoins. 

The digital asset industry has long been calling for such rules to be set in stone. 

But the draft legislation has largely been stalled this year, mostly because the banking lobby clashed with crypto companies over paying customers stablecoin yield. 

A new draft tackling the issue of ethics started circulating in July, banning government officials from promoting or making money from crypto — something Democrats have criticized President Trump’s family for doing. 

Despite the changes, a group of Democrats said the bill fell short and wanted amendments. 

President Donald Trump has urged lawmakers to get the legislation over the line. In August, he said that in order for the U.S. to remain the “undisputed leader in Bitcoin and crypto,” they had to pass the “very, very powerful legislation.”

This post US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent ‘Strongly Urges’ Senate To Pass Clarity Act first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine – Read More

Bitcoin Magazine

Jack Dorsey’s Block Becomes Latest Bitcoin-Focused Company To Apply for Banking Charter

Bitcoin-focused Block Inc. has become the latest company to apply for a U.S. banking charter. 

The company, which manages Square, Cash App, and Bitkey, said Wednesday that it had submitted an application to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to establish Builders Bank & Trust, N.A.

Block joins a long-list of digital asset firms that have received conditional approval or are awaiting approval from the regulator to have the license. The charter would allow companies — if fully approved — to have certain banking powers, such as custody assets and move client funds.  

“Building on Block’s experience in the digital asset space, our history with Square Financial Services, and the deep banking expertise of the team we’ve assembled, we believe Builders Bank is well positioned to support Block’s broader vision of economic empowerment,” Lee Woolley, who would serve as President and CEO of Builders Bank, said in a statement. 

Block said that, if approved, Builders Bank would operate as a federally regulated national trust bank under OCC supervision and provide custody and related fiduciary services, including for bitcoin and stablecoins. 

A number of top crypto companies have received conditional approval, including Coinbase, Circle, Crypto.com, and Paxos.

Decentralized financial protocol World Liberty Financial, backed by U.S. President Donald Trump, also received approval this year. 

Block CEO and founder Jack Dorsey, a Bitcoin maximalist, has been pushing for the biggest and oldest cryptocurrency to become everyday money. 

His point-of-sale products, Square, last year rolled out bitcoin acceptance for millions of eligible U.S. small businesses, with no setup required and transactions instantly converted to dollars at checkout. 

This post Jack Dorsey’s Block Becomes Latest Bitcoin-Focused Company To Apply for Banking Charter first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine – Read More

Bitcoin Magazine

Steak ‘n Shake Says Sales Grew Double Digits Since Bitcoin Adoption

Burger restaurant franchise Steak ‘n Shake has said that accepting bitcoin payments has helped the company grow. 

Writing on its X account Tuesday, the Indianapolis, Indiana-based company said since accepting the largest cryptocurrency, it has achieved double-digit same-store sales growth. 

It added: “And this quarter has been extraordinary, with franchise-partners same-store sales gaining 19%.”

The firm last year started accepting Bitcoin payments, using the Lightning Network to do so. 

It added that it would add the cryptocurrency to its balance sheet and announced in January that it had added $10 million in Bitcoin to its strategic reserve.

Back in April, Steak ‘n Shake Chief MAHA Officer Michael Boes told attendees at the Bitcoin 2026 Conference that Bitcoin has become a core driver of the chain’s business performance. 

Same-store sales rose 11% quarter over quarter in Q2 2025 and accelerated to 15% in Q3 2025, outpacing major rivals including McDonald’s, Taco Bell, and Domino’s. 

He called it the highest same-store sales growth of any restaurant in the industry — and all because bitcoin on Lightning is cheaper and faster than traditional electronic payment methods. 

It works like this: When customers pay with bitcoin instead of a credit card, Steak ‘n Shake saves roughly 50% on processing fees. Traditional credit card processors charge merchants between 2.5% and 3.5% per transaction. 

“Bitcoin is real money made with real energy,” Boes said at the time. 

The company last year also toyed with the idea of accepting other cryptocurrencies but scrapped the idea after a poll on X revealed people thought that only bitcoin was needed. 

This post Steak ‘n Shake Says Sales Grew Double Digits Since Bitcoin Adoption first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine – Read More

Bitcoin Magazine

Lummis Blasts Democrats Ahead of Clarity Act Vote — But Adds Bill Can Get Passed

Republican Senator Cynthia Lummis has again slammed Democrats over the long-awaited crypto Clarity Act. 

Writing on X on Tuesday, the pro-crypto lawmaker responded to an article from Semafor that reported Republican senators saying the bill was likely to fail when the senate returns next week. 

Lawmakers were hoping a crucial vote on the long-awaited crypto market structure bill would go ahead in August before their five-week recess. But it was delayed and the Senate will now vote on it next week. 

“If this bill fails it won’t be because of ethics, it will be because Democrats didn’t join Republicans in embracing a bipartisan bill that protected consumers, cements America’s leadership in digital assets, and empowered law enforcement to clamp down on illicit finance,” wrote Lummis. 

She said that Democrats were continuing to “demand changes” that could allow future regulators to “kill the crypto industry.”

“If we can bridge those gaps I’m confident we can pass Clarity, but they require further compromise from Democrats, not the White House,” added Lummis. 

Lummis previously said that if the Clarity Act dies, it will be because of the Democrats. Lummis and other pro-crypto lawmakers have blasted politicians who they think are deliberately holding back the bill. 

The Clarity Act drafts a framework to formally divide oversight between regulators, distinguishing which digital assets are securities, commodities or stablecoins. 

Though passed by the House of Representatives last July, it has been stalled this year, mostly because the banking lobby clashed with crypto companies over paying customers stablecoin yield. 

A new draft tackling the issue of ethics started circulating in July, banning government officials from promoting or making money from crypto — something Democrats have criticized the Trump family for doing. 

Despite the changes, a group of Democrats said the bill fell short and wanted amendments. 

President Donald Trump has urged lawmakers to get the legislation over the line. In August, he said that in order for the U.S. to remain the “undisputed leader in Bitcoin and crypto,” they had to pass the “very, very powerful legislation.”

This post Lummis Blasts Democrats Ahead of Clarity Act Vote — But Adds Bill Can Get Passed first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine – Read More

Bitcoin Magazine

CoinCorner Launches Lloyd’s-Insured Multisig Bitcoin Vault with AnchorWatch

British bitcoin exchange CoinCorner has debuted a multisig BTC custody service that splits control of customer keys between the Isle of Man exchange and its US partner AnchorWatch — with holdings insured by Lloyd’s of London. 

The service charges 1.5% a year and is pitched at owners who want cold-storage security without managing hardware themselves, the Isle of Man-based company announced Tuesday.

Its new service comes following the Coldcard wallet hack — where bitcoin holders using a single signature wallet lost funds after hackers were able to exploit the popular products due to a firmware bug in the devices that lead to a weak seed generation. About $115 million was lost in the theft. 

“Vault offers a simple non-technical setup for customers, and partnering with AnchorWatch means we can offer fully insured, multi-signature custody with the simplicity our customers expect from CoinCorner,” CoinCorner CEO Danny Scott said in a statement. 

Customers can open a Vault and deposit whatever amount they choose, but the bitcoin doesn’t move into the insured wallet immediately, CoinCorner said. 

Rather, transfers typically happen on the first working day of the following month, and holdings are verifiable on-chain via a wallet address CoinCorner provides. 

Top-ups are allowed anytime, the companies said, Customers define their own identity verification rules before funds can move. 

CoinCorner added that it is the first service of its kind globally. 

Multisig has long been the security-conscious Bitcoin holder’s answer to single-key risk but has also been dismissed as too fiddly for anyone but the technically committed: setting one up traditionally means assembling several hardware devices, generating and backing up multiple private keys and keeping track of which key sits where.  

CoinCorner and AnchorWatch are aiming to simplify things. Vault handles key distribution on the customer’s behalf, leaving them with the security properties of multisig without the setup that has kept most people away from it.

This post CoinCorner Launches Lloyd’s-Insured Multisig Bitcoin Vault with AnchorWatch first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine – Read More