Cointelegraph

While Strategy’s preferred STRC shares ended July well below their $100 par value, investors were told that their August dividend will not increase, holding at 12%.
Executive chairman Michael Saylor delivered the news in a tweet on Saturday, continuing to pitch STRC as a way to “stretch your income.” August will be the second month that the dividend will be paid semi-monthly after shareholders approved that change in June.
STRC shares closed at $89.46 on Friday, clocking a 5.42% price increase for the month which began with a dividend hike — 50 basis points to 12% — after a poor stock performance in June. The volume on the Nasdaq-traded shares on Friday were about two-thirds of their daily average.
STRC shares continued to trade significantly below their $100 par value in July.
Source: TradingView
On Friday, Strategy CEO Phong Le reiterated that management’s “corporate objective is for STRC to trade at $99-$100 over time,” without elaborating when investors might expect that to transpire.
Building cash reserve to make preferred payouts
Saylor, however, did take to social media on Sunday to dangle the possibility that the company will be making an announcement of a change in its Bitcoin treasury holdings. “Bitcoin Drive engaged,” read his X post, following a familiar pattern of posting a chart of Strategy’s BTC buys from Saylortracker.com to start off the week.
https://x.com/saylor/status/2083894636087574837?s=20
Last week, Strategy reported an $8.22 billion second-quarter net loss, driven primarily by an $8.32 billion unrealized loss on its Bitcoin (BTC) holdings as the cryptocurrency’s price declined during the quarter.
The Bitcoin treasury company said it has built a $3.75 billion cash reserve to support preferred stock payouts following the launch of its BTC monetization program.
Strategy also said it has built a $3.75 billion U.S. dollar reserve, enough to cover more than two years of preferred dividend payments and interest obligations. The company recently repurchased $25 million of its STRC preferred shares at a discount to par and said it intends to continue buying the securities while they trade below $100.
Magazine: Here’s why the CLARITY Act’s ethics deal may be so hard to reach

BNB Chain, the blockchain ecosystem behind the BNB cryptocurrency, said it is pursuing legal action after a former employee allegedly used unauthorized access to a wallet to launch a memecoin.
In an X post on Saturday, BNB Chain said the wallet was originally created for a video tutorial explaining how to launch tokens on BNB Chain. It said the former employee retained unauthorized access to the wallet’s seed phrase after leaving the company and later used the address to create a new token.
Blockchain analytics platform Lookonchain subsequently alleged that the former employee deployed a meme token called Asteroid Shiba (ASTEROID) and used four newly created wallets to buy 796.7 million tokens, representing 79.67% of the total supply. Lookonchain further alleged that the wallets later sold 718.8 million tokens for 1,103 BNB, worth about $638,000 at the time of the transaction.
“BNB Chain did not create, authorize, promote or participate in the creation of this token and has no control over the token or wallet address,” BNB Chain said.
Binance founder and former CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao shared BNB Chain’s statement on X and wrote that the former employee was “basically a scammer,” while advising users to “Stay SAFU.”

Trump Media & Technology Group, the company behind Truth Social, has made another major move involving its Bitcoin holdings, extending a series of recent sales.
The company sold 2,628 Bitcoin (BTC) worth about $165 million through transfers to Crypto.com, blockchain analytics platform Lookonchain said in a Sunday X post, citing data from Arkham.
Lookonchain said Trump Media bought 11,542 BTC at an average price of $118,522 before beginning to sell portions of its holdings seven months ago.
The Bitcoin sales come as Trump-linked crypto ventures face broader scrutiny, with lawmakers debating the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act and questions around ethics and digital asset ownership.
Trump Media’s Bitcoin holdings shrink 63%
The latest transfers bring Trump Media’s total reported Bitcoin sales over the past seven months to 7,281 BTC, worth about $545 million, according to Lookonchain’s analysis, which calculated an average selling price of $74,855 per BTC.
According to Arkham, the company’s remaining Bitcoin holdings stood at 4,261 BTC at publishing time, worth $269.8 million.
Source: Arkham
Arkham’s wallet data showed two recent transfers from Trump Media-linked wallets to Crypto.com, including one transaction of 2,429 BTC and another of 198.9 BTC.
The latest transfers follow two earlier Bitcoin movements to Crypto.com recorded on May 22, when Trump Media-linked wallets transferred a combined 2,650 BTC worth about $205 million.
Trump-linked crypto interests face ethics scrutiny
The Bitcoin sales come as lawmakers debate the CLARITY Act, which has drawn scrutiny over ethics rules, digital asset ownership and potential conflicts of interest involving public officials, including concerns raised by critics about US President Donald Trump’s crypto ventures.
Critics have pointed to Trump-linked crypto ventures, including the Official Trump (TRUMP) and Melania (MELANIA) memecoins, as well as World Liberty Financial’s WLFI governance token and USD1 stablecoin, in discussions over the overlap between political influence and private crypto interests.
Recent CLARITY Act discussions have focused on tightening ethics provisions, including rules around officials issuing or sponsoring digital assets, but the legislation remains under consideration and does not require companies to sell existing crypto holdings.
Magazine: Here’s why the CLARITY Act’s ethics deal may be so hard to reach

Smaller Bitcoin transfers have reached levels not seen since the collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX amid an ongoing suspected Coldcard hack.
Bitcoin transfers below 1 BTC climbed to their highest daily level since November 2022 on Friday, with 39,600 BTC moved, according to data shared by CryptoQuant head of research Julio Moreno on Saturday.
The figure was just 300 BTC below the 39,900 BTC transferred on Nov. 16, 2022, days after FTX filed for bankruptcy. “The Bitcoin plebs had not moved this amount of BTC in a day since the FTX collapse,” Moreno said, adding that he was encouraged to see users “taking action.”
As the suspected Coldcard hack continues to unfold, the incident has become a broader test for Bitcoin self-custody, reigniting debate over whether users are better protected by controlling their own funds or relying on third-party platforms.
Incident ongoing as Galaxy tracks three attack waves
The surge in small Bitcoin transfers came as researchers continued to uncover new victims of the suspected Coldcard hack, which first surfaced in late July and appeared to remain active at the time of publication.
Galaxy Research, the research arm of crypto investment company Galaxy Digital, reported Saturday that the latest identified wave drained an additional 207.7 BTC, worth about $13.2 million. The theft brought estimated losses to 1,367 BTC ($88.6 million) across 4,585 addresses.
Bitcoin drained from Coldcard wallets. Source: Coldcard Watch
Alex Thorn, Galaxy Digital’s head of firmwide research, warned in an X post on Sunday that the attack was still ongoing and urged users to move funds from Coldcard-generated addresses immediately if they had not already done so.
Thorn said his team continued to identify new victim and attacker addresses, adding that reports from users had helped researchers and authorities track stolen funds.
Coldcard incident reignites self-custody debate
The suspected Coldcard hack has reignited debate over the risks and benefits of Bitcoin self-custody, a core principle of crypto that allows users to control their funds without relying on third parties.
Nick Neuman, CEO of Bitcoin security company Casa, pushed back against claims that “self-custody is over,” arguing that its distributed nature gave users time to react. He estimated that potentially 10 times more Bitcoin was protected through self-custody than was stolen and identified in the attack so far.
The debate also drew responses from traditional finance supporters. Eric Balchunas, senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg, argued that Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) provide a safer and more convenient alternative for many users, pointing to the long operating history of the ETF industry. Others pushed back, saying the Coldcard incident was a failure of one wallet provider rather than a failure of self-custody itself.
Magazine: A quantum roadmap would push Bitcoin much higher: Charles Edwards

Wife of former FTX executive seeks to preclude her husband’s guilty plea
In a Friday filing with the US District Court for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) over campaign finance charges, Michelle Bond’s legal team asked the court to consider precluding evidence related to former FTX Digital Markets co-CEO Ryan Salame, her husband who is currently serving a 90-month sentence after he pleaded guilty in 2023.
Bond faces campaign finance charges alleging that her unsuccessful 2022 congressional run in New York was partially funded by contributions from FTX facilitated by Salame. As part of the filings this week, Bond asked the court to exclude evidence of her husband’s guilty plea and “related plea materials,” in which the former executive admitted to making “political contributions in [his] name that were funded by transfers from the bank accounts” of an entity tied to FTX.
“The Court should preclude the government from introducing or referring to Mr. Salame’s guilty plea or any related plea materials, because their minimal probative value is substantially outweighed by the risk of unfair prejudice to Ms. Bond,” said the filing.
Bond’s lawyers added:
“[...] Mr. Salame’s plea materials lack any probative value as to Ms. Bond’s guilt, knowledge, or intent. Mr. Salame’s plea is an admission of his own guilt, not evidence of Ms. Bond’s state of mind or participation in any charged offense.”
The motion also requested the court include information related to Bond’s “contemporaneous divorce and custody proceedings,” arguing that though she and Salame were not married at the time of the alleged crime, the former FTX executive was not an “ordinary ‘individual’ donor” contributing to her campaign.
The criminal case is one of the latest involving individuals tied to the defunct crypto exchange following its 2022 collapse. Salame, former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried and former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison were all sentenced to prison for their role in the misuse of customer funds and related charges.
Former congressman ordered to pay $35,000 over Kalshi bet
George Santos, a former New York House representative who was expelled from Congress in 2023, was ordered to pay a $17,500 civil monetary penalty and $17,570 in disgorgement from profits earned over bets placed on prediction markets platform Kalshi. The order from the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) stemmed from Santos trading on event contracts betting on his appearance at the 2026 State of the Union address in Washington, DC.
“While buying and selling positions in this market, Santos posted on social media about his plans to attend or not attend the SOTU,” said the CFTC. “In his social media posts, Santos made a series of material misrepresentations and omissions about whether he would attend the SOTU. After these posts, the SOTU contract prices moved in a direction that was favorable to Santos’ positions which allowed him to make over $17,500.”
February X post about his State of the Union attendance. Source: George Santos
Santos is barred from trading on prediction market platforms for three years as part of the order. He was also previously sentenced to 87 months in prison for wire fraud and aggravated identity theft in 2025, but served only three months before his sentence was commuted by US President Donald Trump.
US solider accused of making $400,000 Polymarket bet seeks to dismiss charges
Gannon Ken Van Dyke is a US soldier who faces charges for allegedly making more than $400,000 on Polymarket event contracts using nonpublic information tied to a military operation involving the removal of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in January. He was involved in the operation removing Maduro, according to the US Justice Department, and allegedly used insider information to bet whether the Venezuelan president would be removed from power, leading to criminal charges in April.
In a Friday SDNY filing, Van Dyke’s legal team filed a 51-page memo in support of a motion to dismiss the indictment based on different legal theories, including that the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) at the center of three of the charges was “ambiguous” in treating event contracts as “swaps.”
Although the CFTC under Chair Michael Selig has claimed that the agency has “exclusive jurisdiction” over prediction markets on the basis that event contracts are treated as “swaps,” Van Dyke’s lawyers said the lack of clarity was sufficient to dismiss some of the charges.
“If Congress, executive branch agencies, and courts all find the ‘swap’ definition ambiguous, how can ordinary citizens have fair notice that prediction market wagers are covered by the CEA?” said the filing. “They cannot.”
The case is expected to have significant implications for lawmakers and government officials using prediction markets. Trump’s teleprompter operator reportedly made more than $100,000 using Kalshi event contracts related to the president’s speeches.
Based on a schedule filed in June, Van Dyke is potentially looking at a trial beginning in late 2026 or early 2027. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Magazine: Here’s why the CLARITY Act’s ethics deal may be so hard to reach

A Minnesota law prohibiting virtual currency kiosks in the US state took effect on Saturday following the signing of a sign by Governor Tim Walz in May.
According to the law, SF 3868, which Walz signed on May 5, all crypto ATM operators in Minnesota are prohibited from “installing, operating, maintaining, or making available” virtual currency kiosks. Companies with machines already installed must deactivate them by Saturday, but have until Dec. 31 to physically remove them from locations “visible or accessible to the public.”
Minnesota’s commerce department reported residents had lost about $1 million from scams tied to crypto ATMs from 2023 to 2025, with the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center reporting the state had more than $151 million in losses tied to crypto or crypto wallets in 2025. Officials said that the schemes “disproportionately targets seniors” and often involved situations where victims were pressured to quickly send money based on fake emergencies.
The ban on kiosks allowing users to purchase Bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrencies is just one of many measures US states are considering in response to fraudulent activity. Tennessee began enforcing a total ban on the machines on July 1, a Georgia law requiring transaction limits and other restrictions went into effect the same day and Delaware and New Jersey lawmakers have advanced bills proposing similar measures.
Data from CoinATMRadar showed that there were 201 crypto ATMs and kiosks operating in Minnesota before the statewide ban took effect on Aug. 1.

An affiliate of a political action committee (PAC) funded largely by contributions from cryptocurrency companies Ripple Labs and Coinbase has poured more cash into ads for next week’s primary race in Michigan’s 13th Congressional District.
According to Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings as of Thursday, the Protect Progress PAC had spent more than a combined $2 million on media to support Michigan Representative Shri Thanedar in the state’s 13th district and oppose his Democratic challenger, Donavan McKinney.
The most recent filings effectively doubled what the PAC had reported spending a week prior, with an additional $884,240 on ads to support Thanedar and more than $150,000 to oppose McKinney.
Source: FEC
During his time in the US House of Representatives, Thanedar voted in favor of the stablecoin-focused GENIUS Act legislation and the crypto market structure bill currently under consideration in the Senate, the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act. He also cosponsored the Promoting Innovation in Blockchain Development Act in an effort to protect developers.
In a July 21 statement on the PAC spending supporting Thanedar, McKinney said “the crypto lobby is paying my opponent back for helping Trump make over $1 billion since taking office.” He was likely referring to the US President disclosing that he earned more than $1.4 billion from crypto investments in 2025, including from his memecoin, Official Trump (TRUMP) and through his family’s business, World Liberty Financial. Many Democrats have accused Trump of using his position to profit from the presidency through laws like GENIUS.
Cointelegraph reached out to Thanedar’s and McKinney’s campaigns for comment on the PAC expenditures but did not receive an immediate response.
Protect Progress is an affiliate of the Fairshake PAC, which was responsible for spending more than $170 million in the 2024 US election cycle through media supporting candidates it considered favoring crypto industry-aligned policies. The Michigan primary is scheduled for Tuesday, but the PAC and its affiliates have already poured millions of dollars into 2026 races in Texas, Illinois and other states.
The US consumer advocacy group Public Citizen reported in June that Fairshake and its affiliates were responsible for spending more than $82 million out of the roughly $189 million crypto companies had used in the 2026 election cycle. Fairshake reported holding a $193 million war chest as of January.
PAC spending in Washington and Alabama with primaries looming
In addition to Michigan’s primaries, the Fairshake affiliate Defend American Jobs PAC spent more than $65,000 on media to support a Republican running in Washington’s 4th congressional, according to FEC filings. Washington is scheduled to hold primaries the same day as Michigan.
Alabama, scheduled to hold primaries on Aug. 11, has also been a focus for Fairshake. FEC filings showed that Defend American Jobs spent more than $511,000 on media to support Jerry Carl Jr., a Republican who represented the state’s 1st congressional district from 2021 to 2025. Notably, the former Alabama lawmaker was one of the wealthiest in the state’s House delegation, with a reported net worth of up to $15 million in 2023.
Magazine: Crypto lobby spending on Republicans far outpaces Democratic support

Galaxy Research, the research arm of crypto investment company Galaxy Digital, identified 1,196 addresses linked to the Coldcard wallet incident that lost 1,082.65 Bitcoin, worth about $70.2 million at the time of the transactions.
Galaxy Research traced the Bitcoin movements between 1:10 AM and 1:51 AM UTC on July 30 across blocks 960,183 to 960,191, about 30 hours before Coldcard published its first security advisory, according to an X post on Friday.
Earlier preliminary analysis of the Coldcard incident by AnchorWatch CEO and co-founder Rob Hamilton estimated that 594.48 Bitcoin, worth around $38 million, moved across 500 transactions within a three-block window.
Galaxy Research later said the identified transactions shared a pattern, including identical 30 satoshis per virtual byte fees and no change outputs. The company said the initial attack activity is identifiable on-chain through this pattern, but noted that future attacks against Coldcard-generated addresses may not follow the same fingerprint.
Coinkite co-founder Rodolfo Novak said in an X post on Friday that the company takes responsibility for the firmware bug and is working to determine the full scope of the issue.
Novak said Coinkite released a hotfix to remove the software fallback path, but warned that the update does not protect seeds generated on vulnerable firmware. He advised users who generated seeds on vulnerable firmware to move their funds to a new seed.

US-listed spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) finished July in the green despite a late-month wave of selling and BTC price volatility.
Bitcoin ETFs attracted a modest $172.4 million in net inflows in July, reversing two consecutive months of outflows, according to SoSoValue data.
The monthly inflows came despite a volatile end to July, as the funds logged a $265.4 million net outflow on Friday, marking their largest daily withdrawal since July 13.
July’s return to positive territory improved Bitcoin ETF flows after nearly $7 billion in combined outflows over the previous two months, including the largest monthly outflow of 2026 in June at $4.5 billion. However, the weak finish showed investors remained cautious heading into August.
Bitcoin ETFs remain negative in 2026 with $5.29 billion in outflows
Despite a modest net inflow in July, US-listed spot Bitcoin ETFs have recorded around $5.3 billion in net outflows year to date.
March, April and July were the only positive months of 2026, bringing in a combined $3.46 billion in inflows, while January, February, May and June posted outflows totaling about $8.75 billion.
Monthly spot Bitcoin ETF flows in 2026. Source: SoSoValue
The products have still attracted $51.32 billion in cumulative net inflows since launch, while total net assets stood at $76.29 billion at the end of July.
Weekly flows turned negative at the end of the month after three consecutive weeks of inflows, with Bitcoin ETFs recording a $61.53 million outflow for the week ending July 31.
Ether ETFs end July with four-week inflow streak
While Bitcoin ETFs faced renewed selling pressure at the end of July, some altcoin ETFs maintained steadier inflows.
Ether ETFs stood out, posting four consecutive weeks of inflows and ending the month with a $365.2 million net inflow, according to SoSoValue.
The inflows marked the second month of positive flows for Ether ETFs year to date after April’s $356 million inflow. Despite the recovery, the products remained about $1.1 billion in net outflows year to date.
XRP ETFs also maintained steady demand, recording $27.3 million in July inflows and marking their fifth positive month of 2026. The products have recorded about $343 million in net inflows year to date, making them one of the stronger-performing crypto ETF categories this year.
Magazine: A quantum roadmap would push Bitcoin much higher: Charles Edwards

A Bank of Italy study found that stablecoin-based remittances did not offer a systematic cost or speed advantage over traditional payment channels, as fiat on- and off-ramp frictions accounted for most costs and transfer delays.
Researchers tested 200 USDC (USDC) remittances across 10 bidirectional payment corridors linking Italy with Brazil, Argentina, Japan, the United Arab Emirates and South Africa, comparing end-to-end costs and settlement times with traditional remittance services. They found that exchange fees and currency conversion made up most of the cost, while blockchain transaction fees represented only a small share.
Geographic design of the remittance experiment. Source: Bank of Italy
Across the stablecoin remittances examined, total costs ranged from 0.3% to nearly 9% depending on the payment corridor, while transfers settled in less than 20 minutes where instant payment systems were available and one to two business days where they were not.
Using the World Bank’s reported global average remittance cost of 6.65% as a benchmark, the study found stablecoin transfers were cheaper in most of the payment corridors examined. However, they were less expensive than Wise in only three of seven comparable corridors.
Payment infrastructure remains critical
The study concluded that investment in domestic instant payment infrastructure could improve the competitiveness of stablecoin-based cross-border payments, finding that settlement times depended heavily on the quality of local payment rails.
The authors argued that the biggest gains may come when stablecoins no longer require conversion back into fiat currency, writing:
If stablecoins could be spent directly in the real economy, for goods and services, rents, or school fees, without reconversion into local fiat currency, the economic advantages of stablecoin-based transfers would be substantially higher.
Regulation shapes remittance efficiency
The study also found that regulatory design played a major role in determining transfer efficiency. The authors said prohibitionist regulatory regimes failed to fully suppress stablecoin demand and instead pushed users toward offshore platforms and other unregulated channels, while overly restrictive frameworks increased operational complexity for retail users.
The findings come as the European Union has implemented its Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework and the United States has enacted the GENIUS Act, two regulatory regimes that govern crypto assets and payment stablecoins, respectively.
The stablecoin market has grown to about $307 billion, up roughly 16% over the past year, according to DefiLlama data.
Magazine: A quantum roadmap would push Bitcoin much higher: Charles Edwards

Solana-based memecoin launchpad Pump.fun reportedly fired employees two months before they were due to receive PUMP tokens worth millions of dollars.
According to a Friday Sandmark report, at least one Pump.fun worker was due to receive PUMP tokens worth in the seven-figure range. The news outlet reported that Pump.fun co-founder Noah Tweedale said the company “grew too quickly,” resulting in layoffs of an undisclosed number of employees.
The employees were reportedly fired in April, just two months before they were due to start receiving the company’s tokens based on agreements signed in 2025. The agreements, according to documents viewed by Sandmark, said that Pump.fun would unlock a quarter of the employees’ allocated tokens in one year: June 2026.
Pump.fun has previously been the target of a lawsuit involving allegations the company operated a “rigged” machine for investors and another one regarding its maximal extractable value (MEV) practices.
At the time of publication, the price of PUMP was $0.002113, a 7.5% increase over the previous 24 hours.

The trust behind reimbursing creditors from defunct cryptocurrency exchange FTX has begun its fifth distribution of funds, sending $900 million to affected users.
In a Friday X post, former FTX user Sunil Kavuri reported that he had received funds distributed from the FTX Recovery Trust and crypto exchange through Kraken. Kavuri said he had received a notice last week that FTX had sent the funds to Kraken, which released them as scheduled on Friday as part of the distribution plan for exchanges including BitGo and Payoneer.
Source: Sunil Kavuri
The distribution will mark the fifth round of attempts of repaying FTX’s creditors since the exchange filed for bankruptcy in 2022. Following this most recent distribution, FTX’s trust is estimated to have paid out about $11 billion to affected users who lost access to their funds for years.
FTX was one of the largest and most prominent exchanges to collapse in 2022 amid a market downturn, resulting in criminal charges being filed against executives due to the misuses of user funds. Former CEO Sam “SBF” Bankman-Fried and Ryan Salame, the co-CEO of FTX’s Bahamian affiliate, were still in federal prison as of July, while former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison was released in January after serving more than a year.
Binance, ex-CEO to face challenge over $1.76 billion claim from FTX
Last week, a bankruptcy court judge ruled that the FTX trust couldn’t pursue damages against crypto exchange Binance and its former CEO Changpeng Zhao. However, Chief Judge Karen B. Owens did not dismiss the trust’s claim in seeking to claw back $1.76 billion from Binance used to repurchase its stake in FTX that it alleged was due in part to “Bankman-Fried’s pervasive and now well-known malfeasance.”
Magazine: The real reason DeFi projects that survived 2022 crash are shutting down now

Key points:
Bond yields have been going up since the beginning of the Iran war, widely attributed to inflation expectations due to energy prices
However, the five-year inflation expectation priced into Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities is 2.2% and trending down since May
The driver appears to be rising real yields with bearish implications for yield-free assets like Bitcoin
Continuation of Q2 bond selling
After yields reached local lows in early March, US government debt has been undergoing a multi-month sell-off. This week, after the most recent meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), 30-year Treasury yields made headlines by reaching the highest level since 2007.
In line with the two-year yield rising 76 basis points (bps) in this window, a September rate hike by the Federal Reserve is priced into the markets at 63%, according to CME FedWatch.
2Y, 10Y and 30Y US Treasury Yields. Data Source: Treasury.gov
With rates at these elevated levels, government bond investments are, for the first time since 2019, more profitable than cash-and-carry trades in the crypto markets, as per Glassnode’s latest research.
2Y US Treasury yield and crypto futures carry trade. Source: Glassnode
The mainstream inflation narrative
The reason for the bond sell-off is commonly taken to be the inflationary pressures from higher commodity and energy prices. The multi-month bond sell-off coincides with the start of the Iran war and resulting closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Furthermore, the daily closes of the two-year US government bond yield, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) and Brent Crude have correlated since March at a coefficient of r=0.44:
Daily closes of WTI and Brent Crude against 2Y Yield. Data Sources: fred.stlouisfed.org, EIA
WTI briefly rose once again above $85 a barrel on Thursday after President Donald Trump threatened Iran and bonds sold off leading into the FOMC. Nothing about the conflict suggests a near-term resolution, which has led some to argue that higher rates are being caused by inflation expectations.
WTI (West Texas Intermediate) oil price chart. Source: Tradingeconomics.com
This has driven loud inflation scares through the mainstream financial press, with recent Bloomberg headlines, such as “Global Bonds Are Reeling as Oil Surge Rekindles Inflation Threat”, “US Yields Hit Two-Month High as Oil Sparks Inflation Risk” or “Global Bond Selloff Worsens as Rising Oil Prices Spook Investors”. Among the ever-inflation-aware crypto and precious metals audience, this narrative is popular, too:
https://x.com/silvertrade/status/2082217030108008907
Market commentator and Bitcoin influencer The Wolf of All Streets recently posted on X:
https://x.com/i/status/2082759323592073385
However, the way other Treasury securities trade does not support the inflation-driven narrative for bond yields.
TIPS say rate rises are ‘real’
While most analysts and commentators focus on regular Treasury yields for their analysis, Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities, or TIPS, have offered clear signs against the inflation narrative.
A Treasury Inflation-Protected Security (TIPS) is an ordinary treasury bond for which the principal payment is adjusted upward in line with the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U). In addition to the inflation-protected principal, each TIPS carries a fixed coupon rate. Thus, unlike for a regular bond, both principal and interest payments are inflation-adjusted.
By comparing the yield of a TIPS with a regular, equally dated Treasury, the expectation of future CPI inflation can be estimated as the so-called breakeven rate. And although Treasury yields have been rising, the five-year breakeven rate has gone down sharply since May.
Five-year breakeven inflation rate. Source: fred.stlouisfed.org
At roughly 2.2%, the five-year breakeven expects the Fed to achieve its 2% target in the medium term. However, more telling is that the breakeven rate has been moving in the opposite direction to the nominal treasury yields.
While the five-year nominal yield rose 33 bps, TIPS data suggests this was the result of an 84 bps rise in the real yield, partially offset by a 51 bps decline in expected inflation. While the inflation narrative remains a compelling story, the marketplace says otherwise. The real story ought to be a rise in real yields.
What it may mean for crypto
Generally, rising “real” investment returns on bonds and stocks in terms of CPI make non-yielding assets such as Bitcoin relatively less attractive to certain investors. Beyond this, the impact on the crypto market depends on the explanation for higher real rates, of which several are available.
Reserve liquidation — No clear impact on Crypto. Higher oil prices widen trade deficits for Asian energy importers. As oil is generally priced and settled in US dollars, shortages in the local eurodollar markets in Asia have occurred, which has put their exchange rates under pressure. The Japanese yen (JPY), Philippine peso (PHP) and Indian rupee (RBI) have all required central bank intervention to defend their exchange rates. As these measures are funded by the sale of US Treasury reserves, this puts upward pressure on bond yields. HSBC’s Frederic Neumann is on record attributing the bond sell-off to FX pressure rather than a verdict on the dollar.
Demand destruction — Bearish for Crypto. An oil shock that persists long enough stops being inflationary and starts triggering a recession. Neuberger Berman argued in its second-quarter outlook that investors are underpricing the hit to output from sustained energy prices. The credit contraction that coincides with a recession would be bad for equities and Bitcoin by severely restricting liquidity. In a real sign of recessionary credit events, credit spreads are expected to widen. Cointelegraph reported on possible first signs of this on Wednesday.
Investment demand — Likely bearish for Crypto. Real rates may have also responded to expected growth and the demand for capital from the AI sector. Government bond issuance is increasingly competing with the record issuance of corporate bonds from AI hyperscalers. Goldman Sachs Research projects roughly $755 billion of AI capex in 2026 and about $920 billion in 2027. UBS has raised its 2026 investment-grade issuance forecast to $1.8 trillion, with technology supply lifted to $360 billion on hyperscaler guidance. As crypto is competing for a similar pool of capital and investor cohort, this is likely to suppress the sector.

Bitcoin (BTC) fell to its lowest levels in over two weeks on Friday as US stocks saw pressure into the monthly close.
Key points:
Bitcoin approaches $62,000 as daily losses hit 3.5%.
US stocks saw no positive reactions to relief in Asia, where stocks rebounded after the semiconductor sell-off.
Analysis warns that Bitcoin bear-market history should continue to repeat in August.
Bitcoin price targets $62,000 in month-end volatility
Data from TradingView showed BTC/USD falling 3.5% to reach $62,369 on Bitstamp, a level last seen on July 14.
BTC/USD one-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView
US stocks turned red at the open before treading water, diverging from a major relief bounce seen in Asia. There, South Korea’s KOSPI index ended the day up 17.9%, its largest single-day gain on record.
KOSPI index one-day chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView
“Semiconductor shares led both the sell-off and the subsequent recovery, reflecting the index’s high exposure to the global AI and memory-chip cycle,” trading company QCP Capital wrote in commentary on the latest macro market moves.
QCP noted that crypto market trading activity increased around the KOSPI gyrations, something it said “highlighted the growing relationship between crypto liquidity, regional equity positioning and broader technology-sector sentiment.”
Both Japan and Korea reportedly engaged in currency interventions on Thursday, while Japan’s central bank kept benchmark interest rates at 1.0%, following the US Federal Reserve’s decision to stand pat on Wednesday.
Bitcoin traders see bear-market history repeating in August
BTC/USD approached the end of the monthly candle up 8.5%, marking its strongest July performance since 2022, per data from CoinGlass.
BTC/USD monthly returns (screenshot). Source: CoinGlass
Previously, traders had anticipated a relief bounce for the pair lasting until August, mirroring the 2022 bear market and ultimately reaching its next long-term bottom.
Trader and analyst Rekt Capital, among those seeing BTC price action copying bear-market moves from four years ago, forecast that the tide might not turn immediately.
“It’s likely price will try to maintain these highs in the early stages of August but history suggests price could rollover just like it did in 2022,” he wrote in a post on X on Friday.
Rekt Capital reiterated that Bitcoin’s 50-month exponential moving average (EMA), currently at $65,820, continued to act as resistance after two failed breakouts since mid-June.
BTC/USD one-day chart with 50-month EMA. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

The European Central Bank (ECB) said Thursday its planned digital euro app will exceed the accessibility requirements of the European Accessibility Act.
The proposed design includes enhanced visual design, full keyboard navigation, screen-reader support, time-out warnings, simplified language, error prevention and reduced motion settings, among other accessibility features, the ECB said in a Thursday release.
The ECB first described the standalone digital euro app in an October 2025 progress report, saying it would serve as a fallback if bank apps failed and allow users to switch payment service providers without learning a new application. The report said both bank and non-bank payment service providers opposed mandatory support for the standalone app.
The digital euro is the European Union’s proposed central bank digital currency (CBDC), designed to complement cash by providing a public digital payment option across the euro area.
On July 14, the ECB selected 36 payment service providers to participate in a 12-month pilot scheduled to begin in the second half of 2027, testing the system before any decision on issuance.
The digital euro has drawn criticism from some privacy advocates and lawmakers, who argue a CBDC could enable greater government surveillance of payments, while the ECB has said it will include privacy safeguards.

Crypto forensics and compliance company AMLBot has launched its AI Tracer, described as a self-service blockchain analysis tool that maps visible fund movements from a transaction hash across blockchain networks.
AMLBot said the tool aims to address the current need for specialist software and knowledge to trace transactions. The company said the tool also traces through bridges that move assets cross-chain or when the assets are split among multiple wallets.
“The process is automatic: the AI traverses the transaction graph, follows the movement of funds from the starting address through intermediate wallets toward whatever endpoint the money reached, and matches known entity labels — exchanges, services, flagged addresses — against every wallet it encounters,” the company said in a press release shared with Cointelegraph.
According to the announcement, AI Tracer cannot see transfers between internal exchange accounts, determine why a payment was made, freeze assets or guarantee recovery. Its reports are intended as a starting point for investigations and do not replace an audit or legal process.
The tool offers a free check and offers paid plans with higher limits on the number of automated checks. Currently supported networks include Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, TRON, Ethereum, BNB Chain, Ethereum Classic, Polygon, Arbitrum, Base, Optimism, Solana, Cardano and Ripple.
AMLBot said the tool is suitable for journalists, researchers, traders, and crypto user who want to read transaction paths, as well as law enforcement agents investigating crypto crime and independent investigators or compliance teams.

Circle said Friday that the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) has granted a limited purpose trust charter to its subsidiary, Circle Internet Trust Company LLC.
A limited purpose trust charter is issued under New York Banking Law for institutions that do not have the general power to accept deposits or make loans like traditional banks, according to the NYDFS.
Instead, charter holders may exercise fiduciary powers and conduct activities such as custodial services, investment management, corporate trust, transfer agency and securities clearance. NYDFS also notes that some applicants seek to engage in virtual currency-related activity.
“Earning a New York trust charter has been a longstanding objective for Circle given the regulatory clarity that comes with it,” CEO Jeremy Allaire said in a press release.
Circle was the first company to receive a NYDFS BitLicense in 2015, allowing it to conduct virtual currency business in New York.
The company issues the US dollar-pegged stablecoin USDC, which has a market capitalization of $71.8 billion, making it the second-largest stablecoin behind Tether USDt (USDT) and the fifth-largest cryptocurrency.

Japan’s central bank held interest rates steady at 1.0% on Friday after a reported major intervention in the yen.
Key points:
Japan holds interest rates at 1.0%, following market expectations.
Both Japan and South Korea’s central banks reportedly engage in currency interventions, as the JPY briefly gains 3.5% overnight.
Bank of Japan warns of incoming CPI inflation headwinds in the second half of the year.
Yen rises up to 3.5% as Korea joins intervention
In its latest statement, the Bank of Japan (BoJ) revealed broad consensus among officials for holding rates at current levels — an outcome that markets had anticipated in advance.
“The Bank will encourage the uncollateralized overnight call rate to remain at around 1.0 percent,” it confirmed.
Eight out of nine members of the bank’s Policy Board voted for the outcome, with only Hajime Takata proposing a 0.25% rate hike.
Japan benchmark interest rate (screenshot). Source: BoJ
Japan’s benchmark rate remains at its highest levels since 1995, with the BoJ meeting result coming just hours after the yen saw snap volatility. Against the US dollar, the currency rose by as much as 3.5% on Thursday, per data from TradingView, in a move that has widely been attributed to central bank intervention
JPY/USD one-day chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView
The BoJ did not officially comment on the latest moves, which coincided with a significant rebound in the South Korean stock market after days of heavy selling concentrated on semiconductor stocks. The Korean won was up by around 1% at the time of writing amid reports of a joint intervention between the BoJ and Korea’s central bank. Analysts referenced “tightly aligned” mutual interests of the two countries as facilitating the joint move.
“The interests of each country aligned. For Korea-Japan cooperation, the won and the yen are so tightly coupled that a joint intervention could double the impact,” Lee Min-hyuk, an analyst at KB Kookmin Bank, commented to local media outlet Straits Times.
The Nikkei newspaper earlier noted that the US had engaged in rate checks — a form of soft intervention which can precede a more pronounced operation — during Thursday’s trading session, resulting in speculation over a three-way coordinated move.
“The key signal from last night’s move is that MOF remains uncomfortable with excessive yen weakness. The line in the sand is probably better viewed as a zone around 162-165 rather than a specific level,” Masahiko Loo, senior fixed income strategist at asset manager State Street Investment Management, told CNBC.
BoJ sees CPI inflation headwinds increasing in 2026
As the yen came off its highest levels against the dollar since 1986, the BoJ warned of future upside in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation.
“The year-on-year rate of increase in the consumer price index [...] is likely to accelerate to a level clearly above 2 percent from the second half of fiscal 2026,” it stated in its latest quarterly Outlook for Economic Activity and Prices report.
In addition to rising prices of durable goods, the report referenced “waning of the effects of high crude oil prices” due to the ongoing US-Iran war and closure of the Strait of Hormuz oil-transit route.
Gyrations in the yen have remained an important consideration in crypto trading circles ever since the “unwinding” of the yen carry trade sparked major Bitcoin and altcoin downside pressure in August 2024.
Earlier this year, Arthur Hayes, former CEO of crypto exchange BitMEX, suggested that the combination of a weak yen and rising Japanese bond yields may cause investors to move away from low-yielding US bond allocations. He linked central bank liquidity interventions to positive moves in crypto markets.
“This discussion of Japanese financial markets is important because for Bitcoin to exit its sideways funk, it needs a healthy dose of money printing,” he wrote in a blog post.
In December 2025, Hayes predicted that USD/JPY could rise as high as 200.

Ken Griffin’s Citadel reportedly bought a large proportion of the public stock portfolio of Situational Awareness, the hedge fund founded by former OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner.
The Financial Times first reported Thursday that Citadel bought the discounted portfolio after heavy losses during July’s artificial intelligence stock market rout.
The transaction followed Aschenbrenner’s fund falling about 67% in July, according to The Wall Street Journal, citing a person who saw a letter sent to investors. The letter said the fund remained up about 80% for the year. The Financial Times previously reported the fund was up 439% through June.
Those reports suggested Situational had approached existing investors and lenders for fresh capital and offered some investors the option to buy portfolio assets. The Journal also reported Situational needed cash to meet margin calls from its lenders and that the fund agreed late Wednesday to sell $3.5 billion of Anthropic shares to a group led by Greenoaks and Sequoia Capital before withdrawing from the deal Thursday morning.
Reuters separately reported the leveraged-portfolio detail but said it could not determine whether formal margin calls had been issued before the sale. Reuters said Situational retained roughly $10 billion in stocks and private investments, including Anthropic.
AI holdings suffered steep July falls
Several stocks linked to the fund suffered sharp declines in July. Sandisk remained down about 44% for the month even after closing Thursday up 26%. CoreWeave fell nearly 26% in July, while Bloom Energy was down around 32%, Yahoo Finance data shows.
Situational’s US Securities and Exchange Commission filing showed direct share positions in all three companies as of March 31.
The same filing showed about $1.11 billion in shares of seven Bitcoin (BTC) mining companies, including Iren, Core Scientific, Riot Platforms and CleanSpark. Cointelegraph previously reported that the positions gave Situational exposure to miners expanding into AI and high-performance computing by repurposing their power supplies and data center sites.
It remains unclear what stocks were part of the transaction between Citadel and Situational or whether the fund retained any of its Bitcoin miner positions.
Aschenbrenner’s fund takes its name from his 2024 essay series, “Situational Awareness: The Decade Ahead,” which argued that artificial general intelligence could arrive by 2027 and drive enormous demand for computing power and electricity.
Before joining OpenAI, Aschenbrenner was a member of the FTX Future Fund’s five-person team and signed its November 2022 resignation notice as FTX collapsed.
Cointelegraph contacted Situational Awareness and Citadel for comment but had not received a response by publication.
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The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) said Project Agorá completed real-value testing of tokenized wholesale cross-border payments, with 28 financial institutions and central banks settling about 800,000 Swiss francs (about $1 million) across 17 transaction scenarios.
The BIS said Thursday that the tests used tokenized central bank reserves and commercial bank deposits to settle payments in Swiss francs, euros, pounds sterling, Japanese yen, South Korean won and US dollars, with an average settlement time of about 80 seconds.
Participants included the Bank of England, Bank of France, Bank of Japan, Bank of Korea and the Swiss National Bank, alongside commercial banks including JPMorgan Chase, Citi, Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas, UBS, Standard Chartered and MUFG.
Project Agorá is a BIS initiative launched in 2024 to explore how tokenized commercial bank deposits and central bank reserves can improve cross-border wholesale payments. In May, the project reported that its prototype demonstrated atomic settlement across multiple currencies and jurisdictions.
The BIS said the July trials marked an important milestone and that testing will continue as Project Agorá progresses.