Bitcoin Magazine

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. 

JUST IN: U.S. Senate will hold a procedural cloture vote on the Clarity Act one week from today.

Senator Cynthia Lummis says if they fail to pass it next week, “we will not get another realistic shot at this before the end of the decade”

Pass it pic.twitter.com/BIejUDw0Tu

— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) September 8, 2026

“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.

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Capital B Buys 376 Bitcoins in Its Biggest Purchase of 2026

European bitcoin treasury Capital B has announced a BTC buy, snapping up 376 coins — one week after it said Blockstream boss Adam Back was investing in the company. 

The Euronext Growth-listed company said Tuesday that it now owns 3,521 bitcoins — worth over $277 million at today’s prices — making it the 25th biggest publicly traded bitcoin treasury in the world, according to Bitcoin Treasuries data. 

Capital B’s buy was for €25.3 million (over $29 million), according to its announcement. 

Capital B confirms the acquisition of 376 BTC for €25.3 million, the holding of a total of 3,521 BTC, and a BTC Yield of 2.17% YTD

Full Release (EN): https://t.co/PQDwqfWX9a

Full Release (FR): https://t.co/SrVf8lvp8Q

BTC Strategy (EN): https://t.co/P5j3GA76kt

— Capital B (@_ALCPB) September 7, 2026

Just last week, the company said that top bitcoiner Adam Back, who heads up bitcoin infrastructure company Blockstream, had invested €7.6 million ($8.8 million) in Capital B to help with its buys. 

The firm in August said it had raised €21 million ($24 million) in a private placement backed by Back and asset manager TOBAM. 

The bitcoin treasury’s stock was trading 2% lower on Tuesday. 

Capital B built most of its bitcoin position through fundraising rounds during the first half of 2026. 

In May, it snapped up 192 coins for €13 million after completing three capital raises.

The company, which calls itself “Europe’s first Bitcoin treasury company,” is trying to build a bigger bitcoin position as other treasuries look to raise funds and accelerate their buys. 

Capital B says on its website that it wants to eventually hold 210,000 bitcoins. “Our objective is simple: accumulate 1% of Bitcoin’s total supply by 2033,” it reads. 

Digital asset treasuries became big in 2025 as more publicly traded companies tried to follow in the footsteps of Nasdaq-listed Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy), which started buying bitcoin in 2025. 

Hundreds of publicly traded companies started buying bitcoin — with many buying other cryptocurrencies — to boost their stock prices. But since the price of bitcoin started dropping, a number of them are now under water or have had to sell their holdings. 

Strategy, the largest corporate holder of the asset, has this year slowed down its bitcoin buys and instead pivoted to building a stronger cash balance and buying back its stock as the price of its shares has tumbled. 

This post Capital B Buys 376 Bitcoins in Its Biggest Purchase of 2026 first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

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Alleged White-Hat Hackers Withdraw 4,000 bitcoin from Blockstream’s Liquid Network Federation Reserves

The Liquid Network said Sunday that purported white-hat hackers withdrew about 4,000 bitcoin, worth about $320 million, from the federation wallet that backs L-BTC. Bridge nodes were disabled, and the sidechain was paused. Other issued assets, including USDT, DePix and RWAs, were unaffected, the official account said on X.

The Liquid Network is a federated sidechain of Bitcoin, founded by Adam Back’s Blockstream. The Liquid chain issues a variety of assets such as LBTC, which it backs with BTC on the Bitcoin main chain, held in a large multisig of 15 corporate and known members. 11 of the 15 members need to sign a valid multi-signature transaction to move coins from the treasury. Before the hack, the treasury held over 4200 BTC; after the hack, Blockstream’s proof of reserves page reports a little over 207 BTC left. 

The hackers withdrew 4,019.4 BTC from the reserve address in a peg-out transaction using the SideSwap Peg-out Authorization Key. SideWap is a bridge exchange and a member of the Liquid Federation. While details on the mechanism of the hack are not confirmed yet, it appears an inflation bug on the LBTC side chain was exploited by the hackers to create over 4,000 LBTC that did not exist before, and cash them out for on-chain bitcoin from the federation. Because the transaction appeared as valid, given the consensus bug, the federation members’ HSM security servers signed the BTC withdrawal transaction, worth roughly 320 million at the time. 

The hacker moved the funds to an address ending in 6gyqjlte, from which they quickly signed a new transaction with a message on the OP_RETURN arbitrary data field saying “we are whitehats. contact us on chain.” Those coins were still at that address at the time of writing.

A small mainnet transaction to the hacker address followed by an OP_RETURN saying “Please contact [email protected]”, presumably from a Blockstream public address, though that remains unconfirmed. A later OP_RETURN spend from the hacker address carried “Please contact us on Signal @m671aw.70.” Because this transaction includes an input from the address holding the 4000 BTC hacked, the message must come from the hacker.

In response to the breach, exchanges were told to pause L-BTC deposits and withdrawals. Bridge nodes on the Liquid Network have been paused, limiting access to the side chain, which continues to produce blocks. 

JAN3 CEO Samson Mow said Aqua’s Liquid features were affected and that on-chain bitcoin still worked. Other wallets in the industry that use the Liquid Network are expected to be affected. Users holding LBTC now effectively have their savings at risk, since the underlying BTC is currently not redeemable. Given the private nature of the Liquid chain, user onchain analytics are scarce and not much public information is known about how much LBTC is held by retail users versus corporations of Blockstream itself. Nevertheless, should the funds not be returned, it would be a heavy blow to the Liquid Network’s user base.

Users of LBTC don’t have many options but to wait for conversations with the hackers to resolve. Given the size of the hack, it would be difficult for the hackers to get away with stealing all that bitcoin, though perhaps not impossible. What may happen is that the hackers ask for a finder’s fee and return the majority of the funds. 

This post Alleged White-Hat Hackers Withdraw 4,000 bitcoin from Blockstream’s Liquid Network Federation Reserves first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Juan Galt.

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Trezor Breach Worse Than Reported: Another 67,000 US Customers Exposed

Hardware wallet manufacturer Trezor has said that a data breach first announced last month is worse than originally reported. 

The Prague, Czech Republic-based company said Friday that an additional 67,000 U.S. customers had their names, emails, phone numbers, shipping addresses and order numbers leaked. The leaked data came from orders made between November 2019 and August 2021, according to Trezor. 

Trezor first announced in August that data from 11,742 customers from the U.S., UK, Sweden, Colombia, Brazil, Italy, and Portugal had been exposed — with names, emails, phone numbers and shipping addresses leaked. 

Two days ago, we received an update from our shipping provider, ShipMonk. We’re deeply saddened to share the news that the recent data breach affects more customers than originally thought.

Another 67,000 customers from the US who ordered between November 2019 and August 2021… https://t.co/yDQvTlAA2S

— Trezor (@Trezor) September 4, 2026

Another 1,947 customers just had their names, cities and emails exposed in the breach. 

In Friday’s announcement, Trezor said that its third-party fulfillment partner, ShipMonk, had falsely reassured the company about deleting customer data. 

“Throughout our entire relationship with ShipMonk, we repeatedly requested and received written assurance confirming the deletion of the data, in line with our contract, data policy, and past communications,” Trezor wrote. 

“We are very disappointed that, despite receiving this confirmation, the data was not deleted in their systems.”

Neither Trezor nor ShipMonk immediately responded to Bitcoin Magazine’s questions. 

Trezor first announced in August that the data had been leaked because ShipMonk experienced “unauthorized access to their systems containing customer data.” 

The company added that it had directly emailed all customers involved in the breach. Trezor’s parent company, SatoshiLabs, told Bitcoin Magazine last month that it was investigating the incident. 

Trezor is one of the most popular Bitcoin hardware wallet solutions, and also has support for storing other cryptocurrencies. 

Bitcoiners’ personal data has been targeted by cybercriminals in the past: back in 2020, an unauthorized party accessed popular hardware manufacturer Ledger’s e-commerce and marketing database, leaking over 1 million email addresses and the personal contact data of nearly 10,000 customers. 

At the start of this year, customers reported receiving emails from Global-e, Ledger’s payment partner, that a data breach at its cloud systems leaked sensitive customer data. 

This post Trezor Breach Worse Than Reported: Another 67,000 US Customers Exposed first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

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Bitcoin Bear Market May Not Yet Be Over, Says Fidelity 

Bitcoin may be rallying but that doesn’t mean the bear market is over. Not yet, anyway. 

A new report from asset manager Fidelity said that while bitcoin was behaving like it did in previous cycles, it could still hit a bottom in November. 

Bitcoin started rallying in mid-August after the U.S. Treasury Department said it would more than double the size of its government debt repurchases. The asset’s price recently stood at close to $81,639, up nearly 30% over a 30-day period. 

Some have since argued that bitcoin is out of its bear market. The coin touched a record high in October last year, hitting $126,080. 

“Given bitcoin’s recent performance, the bottom could already have occurred in July,” Chris Kuiper, Vice President of Research at Fidelity Digital Assets, wrote. 

“It could also drop again to make another new low in November or later,” he continued, adding that bitcoin cycles have historically not been precisely four years long, so they “aren’t reliable for timing the market.” 

Throughout most of June and July, bitcoin’s volatility was particularly muted, and the coin traded below $65,000. 

But that all changed in August after the Treasury Department’s announcement, which has since brought the so-called debasement trade back in the picture again. 

To get an idea of where bitcoin moves next, Kuiper argued that investors should pay attention to what happens with the crypto Clarity Act. Proponents argue it could provide “greater regulatory certainty and support continued innovation in the U.S. digital asset ecosystem,” he wrote. 

President Donald Trump in August urged lawmakers to get the long-awaited crypto market structure bill over the line, helping spur bitcoin’s run. The president called the draft “very, very powerful” after meeting with crypto industry bigwigs at the White House. 

The digital asset industry has long called for clear rules on how regulators should treat bitcoin, stablecoins and other cryptocurrencies. 

Lawmakers will vote on the bill this month. 

This post Bitcoin Bear Market May Not Yet Be Over, Says Fidelity  first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

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French Hill Eyes Bipartisan Path for Clarity Act Ahead of September Vote

U.S. congressman French Hill expressed the importance of bipartisan support to get the long-awaited crypto market structure bill, the Clarity Act, over the line before the midterms. 

The lawmaker told Fox Business Thursday that Democrats and Republicans have come to “narrow their differences in getting the bill drafted. 

Pro-crypto lawmakers were hoping the Clarity Act passed before Congress departed for August recess. After a delay, a vote will now go ahead on September 15. 

WATCH: Chairman @RepFrenchHill on the importance of passing the Clarity Act:

“…we passed the CLARITY Act in the House last summer with 78 Democratic votes. It is time for the Senate to join us and pass the CLARITY Act. Members on both sides of the aisle in the Senate have… pic.twitter.com/GMva1XOTDK

— Financial Services GOP (@FinancialCmte) September 3, 2026

“Can Democrats work with Republicans and make sure America leads the world in distributed ledger technology and financial services?” Hill said. 

“This one remaining significant issue is the ethics provision, and that is best solved by passing the legislation because everybody — no matter what family they belong to, the Trumps or not — would then be under a regulatory framework fully scrutinized by the United States government in commodity and securities and banking regulators,” he added. 

The Clarity Act was first introduced by Hill, the House Financial Services Chairman, last year. 

Crypto companies have long called for clear regulations for the industry. The Clarity Act drafts a framework to formally divide oversight between regulators, distinguishing which digital assets are securities, commodities or stablecoins. 

The House of Representatives passed the bill last July but 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. It bans government officials from promoting or making money from crypto — something Democrats have criticized the Trump family for doing. 

A group of Democrats said the bill fell short and wanted amendments. Some were accused of deliberately holding it back by Republicans like Cynthia Lummis. 

Some have praised the bipartisan work that has already gone into the bill, namely Coinbase, America’s biggest crypto exchange. The company’s Chief Policy Officer, Faryar Shirzad, said in July that while some Democratic lawmakers were holding back the long-awaited legislation, younger Democrats wanted to pass it. 

President Donald Trump in August said that in order for the U.S. to remain the “undisputed leader in Bitcoin and crypto,” lawmakers had to pass the “very, very powerful legislation.” 

This post French Hill Eyes Bipartisan Path for Clarity Act Ahead of September Vote first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

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Mexican Billionaire Ricardo Salinas Tells People To Escape Fiat Inflation With Bitcoin

Mexican billionaire Ricardo Salinas is at it again. 

This time, the third richest man in Mexico told his followers that “fiat inflation is a hidden tax,” and the way to hedge against it was to buy bitcoin. 

Salinas, the former chairman of home appliance and electronics retailer Grupo Elektra and Banco Azteca founder, told his followers to opt out and start protecting their savings. 

When you work, you trade your time (your life) for money. But when governments create money at will and dilute its value, they steal the time you sacrificed to earn it.

Fiat inflation is a hidden tax. Don’t be fooled: learn, protect your savings, and defend your freedom, buy… pic.twitter.com/1l8ZtoFCaA

— Don Ricardo Salinas Pliego (@RicardoBSalinas) August 31, 2026

“Bitcoin changes one fundamental rule: no one can print more just because they want to,” Salinas said in a video on X on Monday. 

“While you have to work to earn more money, the system can simply create more of it. Don’t be fooled: learn, protect your savings, and defend your freedom, buy bitcoin and hold it.” 

It’s not the first time Salinas has told his followers to be aware of government monetary policy. 

The billionaire posts on X almost daily to millions of followers, and criticizing central bank money creation is one of his recurring themes, appearing in tweets, interviews, conference keynotes, and video messages. 

In recent years, the entrepreneur has stepped up his criticisms of governments — and his praises of bitcoin. Earlier this year admitted he had increased his allocation in the asset from 10% to 70% of his portfolio. 

Salinas’ bitcoin enthusiasm all stems from central bank monetary policy. Speaking at Bitcoin 2022, Salinas described traditional money as “the fiat fraud.”

“What they are doing is printing money out of thin air, and then making fake purchases,” he said of the Federal Reserve. 

The business magnate has also talked about his success in “orange pilling” his friends and family. 

“I convinced my wife to mortgage the house that she has and take a loan to buy bitcoin,” he once boasted in an interview. 

This post Mexican Billionaire Ricardo Salinas Tells People To Escape Fiat Inflation With Bitcoin first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

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Bitcoin Slides as US-Iran Tensions Escalate 

Bitcoin slid on Tuesday after investors went into “risk-off” mode following escalating attacks between the U.S. and Iran. 

The largest cryptocurrency had initially shrugged off President Donald Trump’s threats to the Middle Eastern nation, as well as the first strikes. 

But things heated up on Tuesday, and bitcoin’s price slid. It was recently down more than 2% on the day, trading for $77,363. The coin had pushed past as high as nearly $81,282 on Friday. 

The Tuesday attacks from the U.S. were because Iran tried to put mines in the Strait of Hormuz, and also because of an attack on an American military base in Jordan, according to President Trump. 

U.S. Central Command said on X that Iran had also attacked commercial ships. 

Today at 12 p.m. ET, U.S. forces began striking Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) targets in Iran. The strikes follow recent attempted attacks by the IRGC against commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and against American service members deployed to the region.

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) September 1, 2026

“The strikes follow recent attempted attacks by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps against commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and against American service members deployed to the region,” the post read. 

Iran responded with a “decisive operation” against U.S. military bases, according to Iranian media. Oil surged on the news. 

Bitcoin’s price has been sensitive to geopolitical tensions this year — especially after Iran and Israel attacked Iran. The cryptocurrency has typically faced downward pressure on news of war, only to then rally when Trump raised hopes of a ceasefire. 

Despite Bitcoin’s price being relatively muted, in recent months, it has made more wild swings since mid-August. 

Bitcoin’s immediate reaction to rising oil prices is to drop: more expensive energy means higher inflation, and higher inflation typically means the U.S. central bank will postpone rate cuts, which can restrict the liquidity that bitcoin needs to gain momentum. 

The Federal Reserve’s chair, Kevin Warsh, last week gave his first major speech as leader of the central bank and said that inflation in the world’s largest economy had not come down enough. 

Traders are now no longer pricing in an interest rate cut this year, instead expecting a hike. Bitcoin has typically performed well in the past in low interest rate environments. 

Still, the coin had one of its best runs in August after the U.S. Treasury said it would at least double the size of its liquidity-support buyback operations, in response to surging borrowing costs. 

The announcement hurt the dollar but non-yielding assets like bitcoin and gold have benefited. 

This post Bitcoin Slides as US-Iran Tensions Escalate  first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

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BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust Is Beating Top S&P 500 ETF 

BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust exchange-traded fund has delivered better returns since its 2024 launch than Vanguard’s popular S&P 500 fund. 

That’s according to Bloomberg data highlighted by the firm’s senior ETF analyst, Eric Balchunas, who said that the BlackRock product’s cumulative percentage return was only slightly ahead of Vanguard’s in the time period. 

BlackRock’s bitcoin ETF is up 71% since its January 2024 debut, while Vanguard’s S&P 500 ETF up 66% on a total-return basis.  

Hard to believe $IBIT is beating $VOO since inception but it’s true..altho it’s close. And to be fair, IBIT’s path to 70% looks like the El Toro roller coaster at Great Adventure (i needed two Advil last time I rode that thing) while $VOO was a walk in the park in comparison.… pic.twitter.com/vpOgI7JZKL

— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) September 1, 2026

The iShares Bitcoin Trust — IBIT — started trading in 2024 after the Securities and Exchange Commission gave the green light to 11 spot bitcoin ETFs following a decade of denials. 

“IBIT’s path to 70% looks like the El Toro roller coaster at Great Adventure (I needed two Advil last time I rode that thing) while $VOO was a walk in the park in comparison,” wrote Balchunas on Tuesday. 

U.S. investors now have several funds to choose from to buy shares that track the price of bitcoin managed by the likes of Fidelity, Grayscale and Morgan Stanley. But BlackRock’s product is the most successful: It currently manages $61.4 billion in assets, according to its website. 

By comparison, the second biggest bitcoin ETF, the Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund, manages nearly $11 billion. 

BlackRock, which manages over $15 trillion in assets, sent shockwaves through the crypto space after it applied for a spot bitcoin ETF in 2023. Its fund now allows more traditional investors to get exposure to bitcoin; its product also experiences more day-to-day trading action than the other ETFs. 

Investors piled back into ETFs in August, which has also helped bitcoin’s price. From August 17 to 27, investors threw over $2.8 billion at the vehicles — the most since October, when the coin hit a new all-time high. 

Bitcoin reached as high as $81,281 last week before sliding again on Friday. 

The price of the biggest cryptocurrency recently stood at $77,539, nearly down 1% over a 24-hour period. 

Bitcoin started a phenomenal run two weeks ago — its best in three years — and is up nearly 30% over the past month. 

This post BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust Is Beating Top S&P 500 ETF  first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

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Bitcoin Unfazed by Trump’s Iran Threats

Bitcoin on Monday shrugged off tensions in the Middle East, barely moving despite U.S. President Donald Trump vowing to hit Iran hard. 

The price of the biggest cryptocurrency recently stood at $79,076, unmoved over a 24-hour period. The coin also hasn’t budged from where it stood seven days ago. 

Geopolitical strife has this year hurt Bitcoin’s price, with the cryptocurrency typically facing downward pressure on news of war and rallied in hopes of a ceasefire. 

When the U.S. and Israel first attacked Iran in February, the coin nosedived, and had been shaky on news of war in March and April. 

But in recent months, Bitcoin’s volatility has been muted, according to analysts, and Monday was no different: President Trump promised to hit Iran again but the asset didn’t flinch. 

“We’re going to hit them hard,” President Trump was quoted telling a Fox News reporter on Monday. The U.S. and Iran started strikes again on Sunday — the first in over one month. 

Bitcoin started a phenomenal run two weeks ago — its best in three years — and is up nearly 30% over the past month. 

Its price started surging after the U.S. Treasury would at least double the size of its liquidity-support buyback operations. The announcement hurt the dollar but non-yielding assets like bitcoin and gold have benefited. 

Positive regulatory news has also helped bitcoin this month: President Donald Trump last week said that the long-awaited crypto Clarity Act was a “very, very powerful” piece of legislation, and urged lawmakers to get it over the line. 

The Clarity Act aims to establish a framework for distinguishing between digital assets that are securities, commodities or payment stablecoins — legislation that the crypto industry has long called for. 

JUST IN: Crypto ETFs attracted $3.2 billion in inflows last week, “their largest weekly intake since October 2025”, The Kobeissi Letter reports.

BlackRock’s IBIT led with $928 million last week, adding to their $1.3 billion from the prior week, and marking the biggest 2-week… pic.twitter.com/ROC9tYPMGN

— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) August 31, 2026

Investors have piled back into exchange-traded funds this month, too, which has also helped bitcoin’s price. From August 17 to 27, investors threw over $2.8 billion at the vehicles — the most since October. 

Bitcoin reached as high as $81,281 last week before sliding again on Friday. 

This post Bitcoin Unfazed by Trump’s Iran Threats first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

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Bitcoin Cools Off After $3 Billion ETF-Driven Surge 

Bitcoin slid Friday afternoon, cooling down after a phenomenal run following huge investment from U.S. ETF buyers. 

The leading cryptocurrency was trading for $77,379 on Friday afternoon in New York after dropping more than 3% over a 24-hour period. 

Bitcoin hit a high this week of $81,281 but slowed down after Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh gave his first major speech as head of the central bank — saying on Friday that he had “more work to do” to fight inflation. 

The Bitcoin price has in the past dropped when the Federal Reserve thinks inflation is too high because it means less chance of a rate cut; the leading cryptocurrency typically does better in a low-interest rate environment. 

JUST IN: U.S. Bitcoin ETFs have brought in $1.14 billion in inflows this week.

Over $3 billion has been added in the past 9 days! pic.twitter.com/ri1jE7enTZ

— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) August 28, 2026

Bitcoin started surging last week after the U.S. Treasury would at least double the size of its liquidity-support buyback operations. The announcement last week hurt the dollar but non-yielding assets have benefited. 

Exchange-traded funds, managed by the likes of BlackRock, Fidelity, and Grayscale have received net positive inflows for nine days in a row, according to Farside Investors data. Last week was their best week since October — when bitcoin hit a new all-time high — and that run has continued into this week. 

Since August 17, investors have thrown over $3 billion at the funds. BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust received the lion’s share of the investment, but Morgan Stanley’s new Bitcoin Trust — which debuted this year — also experienced significant inflows. 

Analysts have said that the so-called debasement trade — when investors buy an asset as a way to hedge against a currency losing value — was leading investors to eye-up bitcoin again. 

Investors taking part in the trade think that bitcoin, gold and other precious metals are a good way to protect themselves from excessive government spending. 

Total U.S. debt crossed $40 trillion for the first time this month. 

This post Bitcoin Cools Off After $3 Billion ETF-Driven Surge  first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

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Bitcoin’s Moment Has Come for the Far East, Says Metaplanet CEO

Bitcoin’s time has come in Asia — especially with a changing regulatory landscape — and its people and companies should take advantage. 

That was the message Metaplanet CEO Simon Gerovich gave at this year’s Bitcoin Asia conference, where on Friday he spoke of how his company went from failing to the third biggest bitcoin treasury in the world. 

Bitcoin Asia kicked off on Thursday in Hong Kong, bringing the biggest names in the space to Hong Kong to talk about everything from treasury companies to building apps from scratch. 

JUST IN: Japanese public company Metaplanet CEO says the bottom for Bitcoin’s price is in

“The buyers arriving now aren’t going anywhere. I believe the bottom is in. And I’m expecting a much brighter rest of the year.” pic.twitter.com/zz0RUxspSz

— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) August 28, 2026

“The previous cycles belonged to the West, and the first Asian cycle has already started,” Gerovich said. “The only question left is who builds it. Will you?”

Often dubbed Asia’s answer to Nasdaq-listed Bitcoin treasury Strategy, Metaplanet pivoted from its core hotel and technology business to buying Bitcoin in 2024. The Tokyo Stock Exchange now holds 43,000 bitcoins worth about $3.3 billion at today’s prices.

Gerovich said in his speech that his company was small and going nowhere fast until it started putting bitcoin on its balance sheet, basically allowing investors to buy exposure to the biggest digital coin via its regulated shares. 

He said that the strategy is a major opportunity for Asian companies, which can now capitalize on the changing regulatory landscape and the growing interest in Bitcoin.

Asian nations, including Japan, Hong Kong, and Singapore, are making regulatory changes to support digital assets.

Gerovich noted that Japan in particular is a country where its citizens have saved like no other part of the world — and that capital can now be put to good use. 

“Hoarding cash has stopped making sense, and every household in Japan can now feel it,” he said. 

“Japanese households hold roughly 14 trillion dollars in financial assets. About half of that sits in bank deposits, earning almost nothing, and that’s just Japan, add Korea, Southeast Asia, and the wealth managed out of this place, Hong Kong, and you’re looking at the deepest pools of patient savings on Earth. 

“And for the first time in a generation, these savings are looking for somewhere to go.”

Gerovich added that Asian companies, institutions, and savers should take advantage of the current market conditions and build the Bitcoin infrastructure in their own regions.

“The end of the cash hoarding strategy and new rules are arriving at exactly the same time, and together, they set up what I think is the single biggest opportunity in Asian markets today,” he added. 

This post Bitcoin’s Moment Has Come for the Far East, Says Metaplanet CEO first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

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Genius Group Sets $2B Dual Treasury Target Months After Liquidating Bitcoin Holdings

Genius Group has announced a new plan to buy bitcoin — just months after selling its entire stash. 

The NYSE-listed AI-powered education company said in a Thursday statement that it was aiming to build parallel AI and bitcoin treasuries worth a combined $1.6 billion, with total company assets targeted at $2 billion by fiscal year 2031. 

Just in April, Genius Group sold its entire bitcoin reserves to repay $8.5 million in debt. The sale came as a number of digital asset treasuries were struggling due to a drop in crypto prices. 

“Every dollar of preferred capital deployed into our bitcoin and AI Treasury that generates returns above the preferred dividend rate flows directly to our ordinary shareholders’ net asset value,” Genius Group CEO Roger James Hamilton said. 

Genius Group first adopted a “Bitcoin first” strategy in late 2024, building a position that grew to 440 BTC by February 2025. 

That effort was disrupted when a court order blocked the company from raising funds or issuing shares, forcing a series of sales that reduced its holdings — including roughly 86 BTC sold in a single month, leaving about 84 BTC by February 2026. 

The company has now sold its remaining bitcoin entirely, using the proceeds to eliminate $8.5 million in debt. The liquidation reportedly came at a loss, leaving Genius Group with no crypto reserves.

Against that backdrop, the company is now proposing to rebuild a bitcoin treasury — this time alongside a similarly sized AI treasury — funded not through equity sales but through a new preferred stock offering.

Genius Group intends to draw on its $1.2 billion SEC-cleared shelf registration to issue Perpetual Preferred Securities, targeting an initial $12.5 million raise. Proceeds would be split between the AI treasury, the bitcoin treasury and a cash reserve covering about 18 months of dividend payments. 

The plan mirrors moves by the biggest corporate holder of bitcoin, Strategy. The company has raised over $16 billion via perpetual preferred stock for its bitcoin holdings. Nasdaq-listed Strive Asset Management has raised more than $150 million similarly. 

Genius Group says preferred capital will become its primary funding tool going forward, reducing reliance on its ordinary share ATM program.

This post Genius Group Sets $2B Dual Treasury Target Months After Liquidating Bitcoin Holdings first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

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Bitcoin Again Flirts With $81,000 Ahead of Fed’s Jackson Hole Meeting 

Bitcoin again closed in on the $81,000 mark on Thursday before dropping again as its stellar week continued. 

The leading cryptocurrency was recently trading for $80,236 after notching as high as $80,793 earlier in the day in New York. 

Bitcoin is now up more than 2% over the past day after gaining 10% in a week. The coin’s rise comes ahead of Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh’s keynote on Friday where he is expected to talk about digital payments — including crypto. 

JUST IN: The Bitcoin Fear & Greed Index is now up to 71, “Greed”

Bullish pic.twitter.com/FM05AzGYWt

— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) August 27, 2026

The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City will hold the annual event at Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where central bankers, Federal Reserve officials, policymakers and academics will gather to discuss “Financial Innovation: Implications for Payments and Policy.”

According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City website, this year’s event will touch on how “recent years have seen a dramatic increase in innovation in financial intermediation and payments,” including new technologies such as “cryptocurrencies and stablecoins.” 

It will be Warsh’s first major speech as chairman of the Federal Reserve. Warsh, who has made pro-Bitcoin statements in the past, has been reluctant to lower interest rates; President Donald Trump, who nominated Warsh, has since last year pushed for borrowing costs to come down. 

Bitcoin in the past has done well in a low interest rate environment. 

Bitcoin’s run started last week when it sustained its biggest run in years following positive regulatory news and an announcement from the U.S. Treasury. 

But recent positive regulatory news has helped the coin. While a vote on the long-awaited crypto Clarity Act has been delayed until September, President Donald Trump last week said that the bill was a “very, very powerful” piece of legislation, and urged lawmakers to get it over the line. 

The proposed law will establish a framework for distinguishing between digital assets that are securities, commodities or payment stablecoins — legislation that the crypto industry has long called for. 

And U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also last week announced the department would double the size of its long-dated bond buybacks. 

The news sent yields down lower; lower long-term yields reduces the opportunity cost of holding non-yielding assets like bitcoin and gold, and generally supports risk-on sentiment. 

This post Bitcoin Again Flirts With $81,000 Ahead of Fed’s Jackson Hole Meeting  first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

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Forget the Trump Bump — Bitcoin Would Be Fine Under Democrats, Says VanEck 

President Donald Trump may be the most crypto-friendly leader the U.S. has had so far — but what would happen to Bitcoin if the Democrats were to get back in power? 

Well, it wouldn’t necessarily be bad, according to asset manager VanEck’s Head of Digital Assets Research, Matthew Sigel. 

Speaking on CNBC Wednesday, the analyst also said that contrary to what many believe, ex-President Joe Biden wasn’t anti-Bitcoin. 

Republicans have repeatedly blasted Democrats as anti-crypto. Regulators under ex-president Joe Biden cracked down on digital asset companies, filing various lawsuits.  

“Biden was actually okay for Bitcoin,” Sigel said. “It’s the rest of cryptos that might have a problem [if Democrats get back in power].” 

He added: “With the ascendant socialist wing of the Democrat Party, I can tell you here in New York City that there are plenty who are reminded of why there is value in a decentralized, scarce asset that can’t be printed and spent on nonsense.”

President Trump campaigned on a ticket to help the digital asset industry and has passed a number of pro-crypto executive orders, including setting up a Bitcoin Strategic Reserve. 

The price of Bitcoin surged off the back of Trump’s 2024 victory and notched a new record last year. Despite some sluggish months in 2026, the leading digital asset began to rise again last week after the president urged lawmakers to get the long-awaited crypto Clarity Act over the line.

Bitcoin has jumped nearly 24% over the past seven days, touching as high as $81,160 this week before dropping again to its current price of $78,438. 

Pro-crypto lawmakers had hoped to pass the Clarity Act before Congress broke for August recess, but the vote slipped to September after Democrats balked at the latest draft. 

Some Republican senators have accused Democrats of deliberately holding the legislation back. 

The Clarity Act aims to create a legal framework classifying digital assets as securities, commodities or payment stablecoins, and determining which regulator oversees each.

Sigel’s comments echo those of Coinbase’s Chief Policy Officer, Faryar Shirzad, who said in July that crypto was “maybe the most bipartisan issue in Washington.”

Speaking about the delay in a vote on the Clarity Act, Shirzad said that while some lawmakers were holding back the long-awaited legislation, younger Democrats were for the framework. 

“A lot of the opposition is generational — so it is Democrats who oppose it — but I think younger members who understand the technology, understand that money is transforming how we should engage financially, how we need to adapt, and so it’s really a generational shift,” he said on The Hill’s Rising show. 

This post Forget the Trump Bump — Bitcoin Would Be Fine Under Democrats, Says VanEck  first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

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Is Bitcoin Out of Its Bear Market? These Analysts Think So

Bitcoin is out of its bear market. But expect a possible pullback. 

That’s according to analysts at crypto research firm CryptoQuant, who say the coin is behaving like it has done in the past. CryptoQuant founder, Ki Young Ju, wrote on X Tuesday that the asset had “entered into the early bull phase.”

Ju Pointed to movements bitcoin made in its last cycle before entering a bull market, and said the coin was currently doing the same thing. 

JUST IN: Bitcoin is currently having its 3rd best August EVER, currently up 25% this month pic.twitter.com/q45AHHpK4e

— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) August 24, 2026

CryptoQuant research shows that bitcoin flows to derivative exchanges have started again, confirming that traders have entered “risk-on” mode, which “has marked the start of a new bull cycle” in the past. 

And another analyst at the firm, Theophiluspep, wrote that while the coin was entering a bull market, “spot demand, ETF flows, and market momentum have turned decisively bullish, but elevated profit-taking, exchange inflows, and overbought conditions suggest a potential near-term cooldown.”

He added: “This looks increasingly like a genuine regime shift into the early phase of a new bull market, driven more by improving spot demand and institutional ETF buying than by excessive leverage.”

Bitcoin started surging last week. It is currently up 22% over a seven-day period and was recently priced at $78,716. It briefly touched $81,160 on Monday. 

Its rise comes after a sluggish June and July when it mostly traded below $65,000. 

U.S. investors last week reversed course and bought up shares in the bitcoin exchange-traded funds, which had their best week since October — the same time bitcoin notched its record of $126,080. 

Data from Farside Investors shows that the funds — managed by the likes of BlackRock, Fidelity, Grayscale, and Morgan Stanley — received $1.9 billion in new cash. 

The change in sentiment comes after the Treasury Department’s announcement last week to at least double the size of its long-dated bond buybacks.

Since the Treasury made the announcement, yields have gone down, while bitcoin and gold have shot up. The dollar last week was trading at a three-month low and on track for its worst week of August. Bitcoin, on the other hand, had its best week since 2023. 

Positive regulatory news coming out of the White House also helped: President Donald Trump held a meeting with crypto executives earlier last week, and urged lawmakers to get the Clarity Act over the line. 

This post Is Bitcoin Out of Its Bear Market? These Analysts Think So first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

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Kraken Says ‘Dust Attack’ From Sanctioned HTX Wallet Locked Out Customers

Crypto exchange Kraken clients were reportedly locked out of their accounts after receiving tiny amounts of sanctioned digital coins. 

In a statement to Bitcoin Magazine, Kraken said the coins were transferred in what is known as a “dust attack” — when small quantities of cryptocurrency is sent to numerous wallet addresses to track and de-anonymize them.

Kraken said the aim of the transactions was to trigger compliance checks by spreading sanctioned funds onto other platforms. Bloomberg first reported the news. 

“We don’t know who is behind these attacks, but they likely expect that if sanctioned funds land in a client account, it triggers a full account lock, causing operational disruption for a large number of users,” a Kraken spokesperson said. 

The spokesperson added that its customers were briefly locked out of their accounts but its “compliance team mobilized quickly to restore access while continuing to hold the sanctioned funds as required.”

“We are working with authorities to ensure these attacks don’t have their intended impact,” the statement added. 

A total of 12,000 such transfers were sent from the wallet to addresses linked to Kraken between this month, Bloomberg reported, citing Arkham Intelligence. Arkham identified the wallet as linked to HTX based on addresses the exchange has publicly disclosed as part of its proof of reserves.

Chinese exchange HTX, formerly known as Huobi, is one of the world’s biggest crypto exchanges. The European Union sanctioned it in July because it has, according to European authorities, helped ​Russians evade sanctions. 

“Recent dust attacks from HTX-owned wallets appear to be an attempt to spread UK- and EU-sanctioned funds to other platforms in order to discredit the broader industry,” the Kraken spokesperson continued. 

Dusting has been happening for years. Back in 2022, someone sent celebrities Ethereum from a Tornado Cash wallet one day after the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned the coin mixing app used by North Korean state-sponsored hacking groups. 

Celebrities targeted in the 2022 dusting attack included comedian Jimmy Fallon, YouTuber Logan Paul and Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong. The feds said they wouldn’t prosecute the celebrities hit with sanctioned crypto. 

This post Kraken Says ‘Dust Attack’ From Sanctioned HTX Wallet Locked Out Customers first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

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Strive Stock Soars After 1,110 Bitcoin Buy 

Strive, Inc. bought 1,110 bitcoin last week, the Dallas-based company’s largest single-week purchase in months, lifting its treasury to 21,356 coins, according to Monday filing. 

The company’s stock (Nasdaq: ASST) soared following the news, with shares trading over 7% higher on Monday. Strive is an asset manager which rebranded in 2025 as the first publicly traded asset-management bitcoin treasury company. In January 2026, Strive completed the acquisition of Semler Scientific in an all-stock deal — the first instance of a publicly traded Bitcoin treasury company acquiring another publicly traded Bitcoin treasury company. 

An 8-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission revealed Strive made the buys from August 17 through August 21 at an average price of about $73,409 per bitcoin, including fees and expenses, for a total near $81.5 million. 

More than 1 out of every 1,000 Bitcoin that will ever exist is now owned by Strive.

And we’re just getting started. $ASST pic.twitter.com/R43EuOfoqp

— Strive (@Strive) August 24, 2026

The buy raised Strive’s holdings roughly 5.5% from the 20,246 coins it reported in mid-August, and it lands at prices well above the low-$60,000 range the firm paid through most of the summer. 

Strive funded the purchase with proceeds from at-the-market offerings of its ASST and SATA shares. Cash and cash equivalents stood at $171.9 million, up from the $154.1 million the company reported in July.

A faster pace as prices climb

Monday’s filing marks a sharp change in cadence. Strive bought 147 bitcoin between August 3 and 7 at an average of just over $64,800, then another 79 the following week at $63,231. Last week’s total exceeds those two rounds combined by a factor of five.

The acceleration tracks a rally in the underlying asset. Bitcoin rose nearly 25% last week, closing Friday at $77,387, and traded near $80,000 on Monday. 

ASST closed Friday at $18.22, up almost 13%, and gained more than 5% in premarket trading Monday. SATA preferred shares held near their $100 par value.

Strive now ranks as the seventh-largest public corporate holder of bitcoin, behind Strategy’s 840,447 coins, Twenty One Capital, Metaplanet, MARA and Bitcoin Standard Treasury Company.

Strategy, by contrast, has sat out the market for close to two months while rebuilding its dollar reserve.

Chief executive Matt Cole said Sunday he holds “very strong” conviction that the bitcoin bear market has ended, pointing to breakouts against both the dollar and gold.

This post Strive Stock Soars After 1,110 Bitcoin Buy  first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

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Smart Money Helping Support Bitcoin Rebound, Says Pantera Capital

American investment firm Pantera Capital’s portfolio manager has said “smart money” is helping push bitcoin’s price higher. 

Cosmo Jiang, portfolio manager at the firm, said in a Friday CNBC interview that the next resistance for the coin’s price could be around $80,000 and that while small pullback was possible, “smart money” was now flooding into the space. 

Bitcoin surged this week on positive regulatory news coming out of the U.S. and news that the Treasury Department would at least double the size of its long-dated bond buybacks.

JUST IN: $3.8 billion Pantera Capital tells CNBC the Bitcoin price is starting to “reverse” to the upside

“There’s smart money now coming in, and there’s real fundamentals to support the rebound in prices.” pic.twitter.com/278fR8t9vx

— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) August 21, 2026

“From everything we see, positioning is starting to reverse,” Jiang said. 

“People are going from very much on the sidelines and even net short positioning to now realizing they want to be long, for what could be a very big technology.”

Bitcoin was recently priced at $77,412 after surging more than 23% over the past week. The biggest cryptocurrency touched as high as $79,319 earlier on Friday. 

While spending most of June and July below $65,000, bitcoin has benefited from news that came out of the White House this week.

President Donald Trump held a meeting with crypto executives earlier in the week, and urged lawmakers to get the long-awaited Clarity Act over the line. 

The crypto legislation, which aims to make it clear which digital assets the SEC and CFTC will watchdog, has been called for by industry bigwigs for years. A vote will now go ahead on the proposed law in September. 

Bitcoin surged on Trump’s comments. On the same day, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the department would at least double the size of its long-dated bond buybacks. 

Non-yielding assets including bitcoin and gold jumped on the news. 

Jiang added that a slew of positive fundamentals in the crypto space — including stablecoin adoption, prediction markets, perpetual futures, and “the crossover of AI” — would help push bitcoin’s price higher. 

“It’s really hard not to be bullish,” he said.

This post Smart Money Helping Support Bitcoin Rebound, Says Pantera Capital first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

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Bitcoin Has Its Best Week Since 2023 as Shortsellers Continue To Get Wiped Out

Bitcoin continued its rise on Friday, having its best week since 2023 as over $1 billion in shortsellers’ positions got ruined and exchange-traded funds received billions in new cash. 

The leading cryptocurrency on Friday was recently trading 23% higher over a seven-day period after flying past $77,542. It earlier in the day reached as high as $79,319. 

Bitcoin’s rise comes after the American investors fast piled into exchange-traded funds, with the vehicles so far this week taking in over $1.6 billion, according to Farside Investors data. 

CNBC analysts said that the coin’s rise is its best performance since 2023 and was triggered by the Treasury Department’s Wednesday announcement to at least double the size of its long-dated bond buybacks.

The announcement has helped send yields down lower, while assets like bitcoin and gold have shot up. The dollar is trading at a three-month low and on track for its worst week of August.

Why? Because lower long-term yields reduces the opportunity cost of holding non-yielding assets, and generally supports risk-on sentiment. 

Those betting on the price of the cryptocurrency to fall also got hit hard: Data from Coinglass shows that over $1 billion in shorts positions were closed. 

In a note Friday, Standard Chartered’s Global Head of Digital Assets Research, Geoffrey Kendrick, said that Thursday was the largest liquidation of Bitcoin shorts ever when $1.1 billion in bets were closed. 

Bitcoin’s volatility had dropped significantly over June and July and had mostly been trading below $65,000. 

Investors have this week frantically bought shares of Bitcoin ETFs, with the funds on Thursday receiving $606.3 million — one of their biggest trading days this year. 

Positive regulatory news coming out of the White House is also helping: President Donald Trump held a meeting with crypto executives earlier in the week, and urged lawmakers to get the Clarity Act over the line. 

A vote will go ahead on the long-awaited crypto legislation, which the digital asset industry has long called for, in September. 

This post Bitcoin Has Its Best Week Since 2023 as Shortsellers Continue To Get Wiped Out first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

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Open Source vs. Source-Available: What the Coldcard Failure Teaches About Bitcoin Software Incentives

Closed versus Open Source code has divided the Bitcoin and broader crypto industry for well over a decade. Bitcoin advocates have long argued that the financial infrastructure of the world should be built in public. Transparency and auditability, they say, are non-negotiable when real money is at stake. Yet the app and legacy layers of finance often disagree. 

Yet the recent Coldcard hack, a popular self-custody hardware wallet where users lost over $100 million worth of bitcoin (more than 1,500 BTC), cast doubt over what “Open Source” actually means. It revealed that perhaps most people, even many hardcore bitcoiners, are poorly educated on the Open Source software development philosophy and when it fails.

The  Principles and Terminology

The language around Open Source can be complicated. Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) and Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) refer to software that meets formal definitions of user freedom.

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) defines free software through four essential freedoms:

• Freedom 0: The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose.
• Freedom 1: The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish (access to the source code is a precondition for this).
• Freedom 2: The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others.
• Freedom 3: The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (access to the source code is a precondition for this).

The FSF emphasizes that “free” refers to liberty, not price, in a common quote heard from FOSS advocates: “‘free’ as in ‘free speech,’ not as in ‘free beer.’”

The Open Source Initiative’s Open Source Definition adds ten practical criteria. These include free redistribution without royalties, availability of source code in the preferred form for modification, the right to create and distribute derived works, and no discrimination against persons, groups, or fields of endeavor — including commercial use. A license must meet all ten criteria to qualify as Open Source under the OSI standard.

“Source available” or “source viewable” is different. Code may be publicly readable while the license restricts the right to sell it. Coldcard’s firmware, for example, is released under MIT terms plus the Commons Clause. The Clause specifically removes the right to “Sell” the software — defined as providing it to third parties for a fee or other consideration in a product or service whose value derives entirely or substantially from the software itself. In other words, Coldcard’s firmware could not be used commercially. 

The Commons Clause’s own FAQ states the difference explicitly: “Is this ‘Open Source’? No.” It notes that applying the clause means the software meets many elements of the Open Source Definition but not all of them, and therefore should not be called Open Source.

These distinctions matter. Publishing source code creates the possibility of inspection. Granting the full set of rights defined by the Free Software Definition or the Open Source Definition is what makes software FOSS or FLOSS. But having the badge of approval, being able to wave a FOSS or FLOSS flag, is not the point. Commercial liberty in FOSS unlocks third-party incentives to test and review code that might otherwise not be there, critics argue. 

The four freedoms form the philosophical core of Open Source. In practice they rest on an economic assumption: that enough motivated people will actually examine the code. When that assumption fails, the system produces a classic tragedy of the commons, a situation where a shared resource is overused or neglected because individual users act in their own short-term self-interest rather than in the long-term interest of the group. 

Each person has an incentive to take more (or contribute less) than is sustainable, and the resource degrades as a result. This happens when there is misalignment between the short-term self-interest of the individual and the long-term interest of the group. Sometimes alignment exists; sometimes it does not. 

One Bitcoin developer put the problem bluntly: “Using mocks and stubs of Open Source code in tests is irresponsible and shortsighted. Open Source code is considered safe because anyone can verify it. If you aren’t willing to do the bare minimum of testing the features you actually depend on, then you are behaving like a leech.”

As a result, Open Source does not create safety by itself. It creates the possibility of verification. Whether that verification occurs depends on incentives, skill, and attention. Historical FOSS is believed to harden over time as vulnerabilities are discovered, disclosed and patched, creating solid foundations others build on top of. The Linux kernel is a great example of such hardened FOSS; it powers the vast majority of the world’s servers, cloud infrastructure, Android devices, and embedded systems, making it one of the most widely deployed pieces of software in history.

Open Source as Demonstrated by Bitcoin Core

Bitcoin Core, the reference implementation of Bitcoin, is another prescient large-scale example of pure open-source functioning in the wild. The software, which runs behind most Bitcoin-related infrastructure, is released under the MIT license. Its development process is broadly public by design.

Anyone can open a pull request. Code review is the primary filter and the recommended entry point for new contributors. Reviewers use a formal vocabulary—Concept ACK (acknowledgment and agreement with the goal), Approach ACK (agreement with the goal and method), ACK with a specific commit hash (tested and approved for merge), or NACK (disagreement, which should be accompanied by technical reasoning).

Maintainers weigh consensus among contributors and the technical merits of a change before merging. Consensus-critical changes face a still higher bar and usually require a Bitcoin Improvement Proposal and extensive multi-year discussions on the bitcoin-dev mailing list and IRC.

There is no privileged caste of “Bitcoin Core developers.” Trust is earned through demonstrated competence over time. Maintainers exist for practical reasons—auditing and merging code, managing releases, and basic moderation—but the work produced is pure open-source code that anyone can inspect, build, fork, or run. Developers who get code ‘commits’ merged into Bitcoin Core are broadly called Bitcoin Core Contributors. 

Calle, a long-time open-source Bitcoin developer, summarized the reality recently: “People who think that core is some sort of intransparent institution operating in the shadows are either too lazy or too dumb to go have a look for themselves. Literally everything they do is public, anyone can chime in, and the result of their work is pure Open Source code.”

Funding for this work comes largely through nonprofit and grant structures such as Brink, OpenSats, Spiral, and others rather than a traditional company product roadmap. Technical discussion and debate take place publicly on the bitcoin-dev mailing list and in the #bitcoin-core-dev IRC channel on Libera Chat, where proposals are scrutinized before and during the pull-request process. GitHub issues and pull requests often carry comment histories stretching back a decade. The result is a development culture optimized for correctness and auditability rather than speed or commercial feature velocity.

The Economics of Open Source

Most users of open-source or source-available software never read the code themselves. They rely on the assumption that others are examining it. In the Coldcard case, a critical entropy flaw remained in publicly available firmware for roughly five years before it was exploited and thus discovered. 

The bug entered the codebase during a major 2021 rewrite that also removed remaining GPL-derived code from Trezor, the first hardware wallet and now the second largest in the self-custody industry. The library at the center of the entropy failure, which replaced trezor-crypto, is called libngu and had minimal external scrutiny, with only 7 stars and fewer than 20 forks in over 5 years of being used in production. Compare that to the 512 stars worn by the trezor-crypto library alongside 212 forks, or the 793 forks and 1.8k stars of the more modern trezor-firmware. Source availability alone did not produce the review that mattered, because other for-profit, well-funded companies were restricted from using it, or so critics would argue. 

The stakes are higher in Bitcoin than in most software domains. A critical flaw can be converted directly into liquid funds on the open market. While the first half of the Coldcard funds stolen are still held in a handful of addresses and the hacker may one day be caught, copycat hackers that followed were more careful, and some have stolen more bitcoin and laundered it successfully, per Galaxy Research. Bitcoin’s censorship resistance and immutable transactability create both a powerful incentive for attackers and a Darwinian filter; only projects that continuously attract competent review, and users and companies that take serious precautions, tend to survive long-term.

Licensing choices shape those incentives according to FOSS advocates who criticized Coinkite’s licensing decisions for years. Pure open-source licenses maximize the pool of potential reviewers and forks. Restricted “source available” licenses can reduce commercial free-riding but also shrink the circle of people with both the legal right and the economic motive to invest deep attention. Alas, the burden of code review falls back on the company under a restrictive license, placing it in some sense closer to closed source than open.

How AI Changes Open and Closed Source Development

Artificial intelligence is now also altering the balance between FOSS and Closed source.

After the Coldcard incident, a volunteer effort known as the Bitcoin Red Team—led by developers including Calle and Rob Hamilton of AnchorWatch, and supported by OpenSats—used frontier AI models to scan hundreds of open-source Bitcoin repositories. In one intensive period, the team filed thousands of findings, including dozens classified as critical or high severity, across hundreds of projects. Responsible disclosures were made to maintainers before broader publication. The exercise demonstrated that systematic AI-assisted review can surface issues at a scale and speed previously impractical for purely human teams.

On this front, it is worth noting that the Red Team found Chinese open-weight models far more reliable than closed-source American models, which, even with cyber permissions and top-line access, refused to answer Red Team queries, a trend that the American developers lament. 

At the same time, the flood of AI-generated code has created a new denial-of-service pressure on FOSS maintainers. Reviewing AI output often takes longer than generating it. Some open-source projects outside Bitcoin have restricted issue trackers or imposed strict anti-AI contribution rules simply to stay functional.

On the closed-source side, the traditional advantage of security through obscurity is eroding. Modern AI models can read, de-obfuscate, probe endpoints and reason about code at high speed. The practical difference between open and closed source is now mostly relegated to back-end code that never gets shared online. Closed-source code, as a result, stands only on the quality of professional audits, the speed of patch deployment, and the incentive structure that keeps competent people with access looking.

Bitcoin and the broader crypto industry are applying unusual pressures to free and open-source software. The combination of real monetary value at risk, adversarial economics, and now AI-scale analysis is forcing the software models to evolve. Returning to analog pre-digital systems is hardly an option for infrastructure that holds up modern society. Only the most audited projects are likely to survive the pressures of AI-aided hackers and the weight of digital-first finance.

This post Open Source vs. Source-Available: What the Coldcard Failure Teaches About Bitcoin Software Incentives first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Juan Galt.

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Bitcoin ETFs Add Over $1B as Investor Sentiment Turns Bullish

Bitcoin exchange-traded funds have taken in over $1 billion in fresh cash over the past three days, helping propel the leading cryptocurrency to nearly $73,000. 

Just on Wednesday, investors bought over $500 million worth of shares in the funds managed by BlackRock, Fidelity, and Grayscale, according to data from Farside Investors. 

Bitcoin’s price has surged this week, and on Thursday reached $72,659 before dropping slightly. It was recently priced at $72,606, a 10% 24-hour rise. Bitcoin is currently a little over 40% below its October record of $126,080. 

JUST IN: Bitcoin is now officially out of the “Fear” in the Fear & Greed Index pic.twitter.com/x3yWLQ8hpy

— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) August 20, 2026

President Trump on Wednesday held a meeting at the White House with crypto executives like Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, as well as regulators like Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Paul Atkins. 

At a press conference after, the president said that the Clarity Act was a “very, very powerful” piece of legislation and urged lawmakers to pass it. 

The crypto market structure bill was passed by the House of Representatives last year but has largely remained in deadlock this year. Some lawmakers were hoping for a vote in August but that will now go ahead in September. 

Crypto businesses have long called for clear rules in the industry; the Clarity Act aims to establish a framework for distinguishing between digital assets that are securities, commodities or payment stablecoins. 

The lion’s share of this week’s investment has been taken in by BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust, which has received $588.5 million since Monday. 

Other funds, like Morgan Stanley’s Bitcoin Trust, also experienced significant trading action. The flurry of buying comes after investors last week cashed out over $385 million from the U.S. funds after tensions in the Middle East started to escalate again. The price then mostly remained flat, despite the ETF redemptions. 

Investors may be feeling bullish after the Treasury Department announcing on Wednesday that it would more than double the size of its government debt repurchases. 

Lower long-term yields reduces the opportunity cost of holding non-yielding assets like bitcoin and gold, and generally supports risk-on sentiment. Both soared as the dollar weakened following the announcement. 

This post Bitcoin ETFs Add Over $1B as Investor Sentiment Turns Bullish first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

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Bitcoin Shortsellers Get Destroyed With $1.7B in Positions Liquidated Following BTC Price Jump 

Daily liquidations of Bitcoin positions surged on Wednesday after the price of the leading digital asset flirted with $70,000. 

Over $1.7 billion in positions held by traders shorting the biggest cryptocurrency have been closed in the past 24 hours, according to Coinglass data. 

And the vast majority — $1.5 billion — of those positions were liquidated in the past four hours. 

Bitcoin on Wednesday morning traded briefly as high as $69,000 before dipping again. It was recently priced at $68,253 after jumping more than 5% over a 24-hour period. 

The price surge comes after bitcoin had largely been flat over the past 30 days. Analysts have pointed out that the coin’s volatility has been at record lows. 

Bitcoin has benefited — along with other “risk-on” assets — from news that the U.S. Treasury planned to more than double the size of its government debt repurchases. 

The announcement from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was aimed at taming yields, which had surged to levels not seen in nearly 20 years.

Lower long-term yields reduces the opportunity cost of holding non-yielding assets like bitcoin and gold, and generally supports risk-on sentiment. 

Bitcoin may have also benefited from investors expecting pro-crypto regulatory news: President Trump on Wednesday will hold a meeting with crypto and prediction market executives. 

Despite a vote on the long-awaited crypto Clarity Act getting delayed, regulators are keen to press forward with rules that the industry has long called for. 

On Tuesday, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced Tuesday a proposed framework for crypto asset offerings, pressing ahead despite the landmark legislation stalling. 

This post Bitcoin Shortsellers Get Destroyed With $1.7B in Positions Liquidated Following BTC Price Jump  first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

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SEC Proposes Crypto Rulebook as Clarity Act Stalls

The Securities and Exchange Commission has proposed its own framework for crypto asset offerings, pressing ahead while landmark legislation stalls. 

The regulator unveiled “Regulation Crypto Assets” on Tuesday, a tailored offering regime it says will let token issuers raise money in the U.S. without falling foul of securities laws.

Tuesday’s proposal carves out two exemptions from registration under the Securities Act of 1933. The first is a one-time exemption allowing issuers to raise up to $5 million in crypto over four years. The second permits up to $75 million in any 12-month period, but comes with financial statements and ongoing reporting obligations. Both require issuers to make narrative disclosures — written explainers for investors outlying a business and its risks — available. 

The rules also dangle a conditional safe harbor. Once an issuer has completed — or permanently abandoned — the managerial work it promised, its token would no longer be deemed subject to an investment contract, and so would sit outside the definition of a “security.” 

JUST IN: SEC proposes new “Regulation Crypto Assets” rules to create a framework for investment contracts involving crypto assets pic.twitter.com/AoMGh4Sx0I

— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) August 18, 2026

SEC Chairman Paul Atkins said the proposal was another step to “onshore innovation in crypto asset markets,” and would give entrepreneurs clear pathways to raise capital “as Congress works to establish a lasting regulatory framework.”

That framework is going nowhere fast. Pro-crypto lawmakers had hoped to pass the Clarity Act before Congress broke for August recess, but the vote slipped to September after Democrats balked at the latest draft. Some Republican senators — like Senator Cynthia Lummis — accused some of deliberately holding it back.

Regulators aren’t waiting. CFTC Chairman Michael Selig has said he will proceed with rulemaking whether or not the Clarity Act is enacted, aiming to finalise rules before the administration’s term is out.

The proposal builds on the SEC’s March interpretation of how securities laws apply to crypto. Comments are open for 60 days after publication in the Federal Register.

This post SEC Proposes Crypto Rulebook as Clarity Act Stalls first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

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Bitcoin as Digital Real Estate: An Excerpt from Leon Wankum’s Digital Real Estate

Bitcoin can be understood through an analogy with real estate.16 Michael Saylor, Executive Chairman and Co-Founder of Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy), has compared investing in bitcoin to buying real estate in downtown Manhattan during the early stages of its development. As population, commerce, and cultural activity concentrated in the city, demand for limited land surged, dramatically increasing property values. Many of the world’s wealthiest families built their fortunes by owning scarce real estate. When something limited is in high demand, its value rises. As the saying commonly attributed to Mark Twain goes, “Buy land—they’re not making it anymore.”

Scarcity plays a central role in determining value, which is why real estate in densely populated areas is more expensive than in sparsely populated ones. Real estate has utility value—it can be used for living or production—but its price is largely driven by the limited supply of land in prime locations. There are only so many properties that can be built in Manhattan, London, Shanghai, Mumbai, Paris, Beijing, Tokyo, or Venice. What ultimately makes these locations valuable is what occurs on top of them: the people, the capital, the creativity, the energy. As a city flourishes, whether through rising population, growing business activity, or cultural relevance, demand for that scarce land surges.

The value of land does not rise in a vacuum; it rises because it captures an expanding layer of economic activity that cannot be easily replicated or relocated. This dynamic is further amplified by fiat monetary expansion, which channels ever more liquidity into real estate, raising nominal prices well above what utility and income-generating capacity alone would support. Market mechanisms such as speculation and the widespread expectation of rising prices reinforce this scarcity and deepen that perception.

Bitcoin operates under a similar logic. Just like prime real estate, it gains value as more people, capital, economic activity, and trust accumulate around it. At the same time, the economic network built on top of it—financial infrastructure, global adoption, liquidity, and digital connectivity—can continue expanding globally through digital networks without corresponding expansion of the underlying monetary base. Adoption on the internet occurs globally and continuously—much faster than in the physical world, where economic expansion is constrained by geography.

But there is a crucial difference. In real estate, prices are shaped by development potential, location-specific utility, and relative scarcity, which is frequently intensified by regulations and policy decisions. Government interventions such as tax incentives for investors, zoning laws, and restricted building permits can artificially limit supply, pushing prices higher. These dynamics are further amplified by speculative behavior and the widespread expectation of continued price increases, making scarcity appear more absolute than it is. Bitcoin’s scarcity, by contrast, is absolute: its supply is fixed at twenty-one million, beyond the reach of policy decisions or political interference. Real estate’s manufactured constraints highlight the importance of distinguishing between natural and engineered scarcity in asset evaluation.

Owning bitcoin is comparable to owning a plot in a growing, borderless economy not tied to any government or geography. As more people and businesses adopt bitcoin, the value of that digital “plot” increases. The difference is mobility—this digital plot is not tied to any location and can be transferred globally within minutes. Unlike land, bitcoin enables the rapid, low-friction transfer of value anywhere in the world, subject only to network conditions and liquidity constraints.

Holding bitcoin provides a new way to participate in the global economy. While bitcoin operates on a global network, its effects are local. By enabling individuals to hold and transfer value without centralized permission, it allows participation in economic systems that are less dependent on institutions able to impose restrictions, exclude participants, or change rules unilaterally.

Bitcoin’s accounting model reinforces the real estate comparison. In a traditional bank account, value is recorded as a balance held by an institution. In Bitcoin, ownership is defined by direct control over individually defined units—unspent transaction outputs (UTXOs)—recorded on the network.

You can think of each bitcoin as a square of land that remains under your control until it is spent. Once spent, that square disappears, and new squares are created for the recipient. Each UTXO can be independently transferred or combined in future transactions. The result is a continuously evolving map of property claims secured by cryptography rather than institutional authority.

The analogy has limits. Bitcoin differs from real estate used to generate income. It generates no operating cash flow and is best understood as a scarce digital asset whose value lies in absolute scarcity and optionality rather than income. But like real estate, bitcoin functions as a long-term savings vehicle and increasingly as collateral, capable of supporting credit formation and broader economic activity while absorbing monetary demand. This makes real estate a useful framework for understanding bitcoin’s evolving role within capital markets and monetary systems.

This post Bitcoin as Digital Real Estate: An Excerpt from Leon Wankum’s Digital Real Estate first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Leon Wankum.

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Investors Cash Out Fast of Bitcoin ETFs but Price Remains Stable

American investors have reversed course, cashing out of spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds after a hot run at the beginning of August. 

Data from Farside Investors shows that investors pulled over $385 million from the U.S. funds last week. The week before, the funds had received fresh cash every day, bringing in more than $865 million in investment — their biggest inflows since April. 

The turn in sentiment comes as the price of the biggest cryptocurrency remains flat: Bitcoin was recently trading for $64,066, unmoved over the past week and last 30 days. 

Investors initially seemed unfazed by the huge Coldcard hack on July 31, when cybercriminals stole over $115 in Bitcoin after discovering a vulnerability in the popular product’s software. 

Bitcoin investors also shrugged off a delay in a vote on the long-awaited crypto Clarity Act, continuing to buy into the funds despite negative regulatory news. 

But things last week changed, with investors pulling cash out of the major investment vehicles as tensions in the Middle East started to escalate again. 

BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust and Fidelity’s Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund experienced the biggest outflows last week, while Morgan Stanley’s fund, which debuted in April, received net inflows. 

Current macroeconomic headwinds, such as the U.S. war with Iran and rising oil prices, could see inflation go up again. The price of Bitcoin has typically done well on news that inflation is cooling because investors expect interest rates to come down.

Bitcoin — along with stocks — has experienced price bumps when President Trump has hinted that a deal with Iran was imminent, but the current war appears to have no end in sight. 

While the price of Bitcoin has been relatively stable — it hasn’t budged over the past month — a July report from NYDIG said that the asset’s year-to-date performance makes it the worst-performing asset, losing out against U.S. treasuries, silver, and currencies like the Swiss Franc. 

It added that if Bitcoin’s price action were to match other drawdowns — like the bear market of 2022 — a “potential cycle low near $38k-$39k” was possible.

This post Investors Cash Out Fast of Bitcoin ETFs but Price Remains Stable first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

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Edelman Financial, Tudor Investment Reveal Significant Bitcoin Holdings 

Edelman Financial Engines has disclosed a $34 million position in spot Bitcoin ETFs — a stake that now exceeds some of the firm’s other holdings in major tech companies. 

While the position is still tiny in the investment advisor’s portfolio, it is still larger than its $25 million position in Amazon. 

The position — held in BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust and Grayscale’s flagship product — tracks closely with the public views of its founder, Ric Edelman. 

JUST IN: $326 billion Edleman Financial discloses owning $34 million in Bitcoin ETFs pic.twitter.com/oXpYCafz69

— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) August 14, 2026

Edelman has been advocating for Bitcoin ETFs since 2019, years before the SEC approved spot products in January 2024. He also founded the Digital Assets Council of Financial Professionals, an organization built to educate financial advisors on crypto and blockchain technology. 

And Edelman Financial isn’t the only one: In a filing submitted this afternoon, Tudor Investment Corporation, the firm run by legendary macro trader Paul Tudor Jones, reported owning 688,529 shares of IBIT as of June 30, valued at $22.9 million. 

JUST IN: Billionaire Paul Tudor Jones’ $106 billion Investment Corporation reports owning $22.9 million of BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF pic.twitter.com/mrgPf2H53s

— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) August 14, 2026

That’s up from the 579,083 shares Tudor reported the previous quarter. 

It’s worth remembering that few investors have built a career reading inflation cycles and their historical patterns as successfully as Jones, making the size of the add notable in its own right.

This post Edelman Financial, Tudor Investment Reveal Significant Bitcoin Holdings  first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

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Bitcoiners Warned After French Tax Authority Confirms Data Breach Affecting Hundreds of Thousands

Bitcoiners have been warned after France’s tax administration confirmed that hackers breached its information system, exposing sensitive financial and personal data belonging to hundreds of thousands of taxpayers and businesses.

Writing on X on Friday, Bitcoin developer Jameson Lopp said the leak was “more bad news for Bitcoiners living in the leading country for wrench attacks.”

Lopp has created a tracker counting wrench attacks — when physical violence is used to steal crypto — across the world. A large amount happens in France, where data has been leaked before. 

More bad news for Bitcoiners living in the leading country for wrench attacks. The French tax authority has been hacked and 678K records leaked.

26,805 people with income over 100K€
386 people with income over 1M€
8 people with income over 10M€https://t.co/KlT0XqPLFR

— Jameson Lopp (@lopp) August 14, 2026

The news comes one day after hardware wallet manufacturer Trezor announced a data breach exposing customer data. 

Cybersecurity researchers at FrenchBreaches, who reviewed samples of the leaked data, reported that the affected records break down to roughly 392,867 individuals and 285,570 businesses. 

Among the individuals, an estimated 26,805 have a reported annual taxable income of €100,000 or more, 386 exceed €1 million, and eight exceed €10 million. The hacker is said to be offering the full dataset for sale for several thousand euros.

The breach first surfaced publicly on August 12, when a hacker using the alias “ZeroBytes” posted on a cybercrime forum claiming to have infiltrated internal DGFiP servers and obtained VPN credentials that unlocked an internal lookup tool covering millions of taxpayers. 

According to the hacker’s own account, the extraction was interrupted before it could be completed, leaving what they described as only a partial dataset of 678,438 records.

The exposed sample reportedly includes highly sensitive information: full legal names, dates and places of birth, home and mailing addresses, marital status, number of dependents, internal tax identification numbers, reference taxable income, individual withholding tax rates, phone numbers, email addresses, and records of past correspondence with tax officials.

Security analysts warn that this combination of identity, contact and financial data could fuel highly convincing phishing campaigns impersonating tax authorities, as well as identity theft and fraud schemes tailored to victims’ income levels or family circumstances.

2025 was the worst on record for wrench attacks (crypto targeted kidnappings), with around 55 reported globally last year, according to TRM Labs. Lopp’s tool counted over 70 throughout last year. And this year is already looking bad, according to the tracker: 54 attacks have been documented so far. 

Wrench attacks made headlines last year when crooks kidnapped David Balland, co-founder of crypto hardware wallet brand Ledger, and his wife in France.

Criminals held the pair for around 24 hours before they were rescued by the French authorities.

This post Bitcoiners Warned After French Tax Authority Confirms Data Breach Affecting Hundreds of Thousands first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

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Bitcoin Treasury Strategy Bites Back After MSCI Announces Possible Index Removal

Bitcoin treasury Strategy has said it “doesn’t need” Morgan Stanley Capital International after the index provider said it could remove the Bitcoin company from its Global Investable Market Indexes.

MSCI said in a consultation that it was consulting on a plan to define “Non-Operating Companies” and make them ineligible for its Global Investable Market Indexes (GIMI).

The removal of such companies would exclude companies like Strategy from indexes visible to a large pool of institutional investors. MSCI said it was weighing up the decision as Strategy is primarily known for holding a large amount of Bitcoin rather than running a traditional operating business.

Digital assets are assets. Index providers should measure markets, not decide which assets companies are allowed to own. MSCI’s proposal puts it out of step with regulators, markets, and its own customers. Bitcoin doesn’t need MSCI. Neither does Strategy. $BTC $MSTR

— Strategy (@Strategy) August 14, 2026

Writing on X Friday, Strategy wrote: “Digital assets are assets. Index providers should measure markets, not decide which assets companies are allowed to own. MSCI’s proposal puts it out of step with regulators, markets, and its own customers.”

It added: “Bitcoin doesn’t need MSCI. Neither does Strategy.”

The consultation also included Japanese Bitcoin treasury Metaplanet, which trades on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, and uranium investment company Yellow Cake. 

Based on financial filings as of May 2026, Strategy and Metaplanet already meet the criteria for removal under MSCI’s proposed rule. 

If MSCI adopts the proposal as currently written and their financial profiles remain unchanged, both companies would be deleted from the MSCI ACWI IMI Index as part of the November 2026 Index Review, triggering forced selling by index-tracking funds and loss of future passive inflows.

MSCI is still gathering feedback on the proposal through September 30, and has explicitly said the consultation “may or may not result in changes to MSCI indexes” — meaning the rule could be modified, delayed, or dropped entirely based on responses from affected companies and market participants. Even if adopted, any changes to a company’s underlying financials before the review could also shift the result.

Nasdaq-listed Strategy — formerly MicroStrategy — started buying Bitcoin in August 2020 as a way to generate better returns for its shareholders during the COVID-19 pandemic.

It has since spent around $63.3 billion on Bitcoin and is the largest corporate holder of the asset. Investors can buy its shares to gain exposure to the leading cryptocurrency without having to buy and hold digital coins themselves. 

Strategy spawned a long-list of copycat firms which have bought not only Bitcoin, but other cryptocurrencies to boost their stock prices. 

Strategy’s stock (MSTR) was trading nearly 3% lower Friday at nearly $95 per share. MSTR year-to-date has dropped by nearly 40%. 

This post Bitcoin Treasury Strategy Bites Back After MSCI Announces Possible Index Removal first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

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