Federal AI regulation could streamline innovation and investment but risks stifling decentralized projects, impacting crypto-AI dynamics.

The post Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang takes AI regulation push to Capitol Hill appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

China's AI strategy could reshape global compute markets, impacting crypto's role as a neutral tech layer amid geopolitical divides.

The post China bets on broader AI strategy beyond chips, and crypto markets should pay attention appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Applied Digital's revenue surge highlights the growing demand for AI infrastructure, but execution risks could impact long-term profitability.

The post Applied Digital beats Q4 EPS estimates, reports 406% revenue growth appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Jeff Currie's venture into oil production highlights a shift from analysis to direct market involvement, potentially influencing energy investment trends.

The post Goldman Sachs’ former commodities chief Jeff Currie plans £50M London IPO for Gulf of Mexico oil venture appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Market dynamics hinge on tech earnings and Fed decisions, with AI investments and crypto volatility poised to influence future trends.

The post Dow Jones closes higher as S&P 500 and Nasdaq lag ahead of earnings and Fed meeting appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Bitcoin Magazine

Republicans Hope For Democratic Support on Crypto Clarity Act 

Lawmakers are hoping to push through the crypto market structure bill this week but the Democrats are holding things back, according to Senator Dave McCormick.

Speaking to Fox Business on Friday, the Republican senator said that a vote needs to happen now. 

“The Democrats are starting to think, ‘We don’t want to give it a win,'” said McCormick. 

Writing on X today, he added: “The time for delay is over. Bring the Clarity Act to the Senate Floor for a vote and let every senator go on the record. America needs clear rules that protect consumers and keep digital asset innovation and jobs here at home.”

Lawmakers have been mulling over the Clarity Act since last year, which would set in stone crypto regulation. The bill has been in a deadlock this year, partially because banking chiefs raised concerns over stablecoin yield and ethics concerns.

A new draft circulating last week bans officials and their families from issuing or promoting crypto — something opposition lawmakers previously had issue with.

Now, GOP lawmakers are hoping to get backing from Democrats to pass the bill. Bipartisan support for the bill exists though some lawmakers — such as senator Elizabeth Warren — have criticized the draft, claiming it would allow President Donald Trump to make money from crypto, as well as benefit criminals. 

A group of Democrats last week penned a statement claiming the bill in its current form falls short. 

Major institutions, including Fidelity and Goldman Sachs, as well as crypto lobby groups and politicians, have said the revised bill works in its current format. 

Democrats — and some Republicans — have criticized President Trump’s crypto business interests, with some alleging conflicts of interest as his family has made money from meme coins and the decentralized finance protocol, World Liberty Financial. 

Despite the Trump family being heavily involved in crypto, and the president winning office after receiving backing from major crypto entrepreneurs, the White House has always denied any wrongdoing on part of the President. 

This post Republicans Hope For Democratic Support on Crypto Clarity Act  first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bitcoin Magazine

Russia’s Sberbank Sets December Deadline for Crypto Buildout: Report

Russia’s largest bank, Sberbank, will build crypto infrastructure by December, according to a report by Russian news agency Interfax. 

A key piece will be a digital depository that tracks clients’ crypto rights and records off-blockchain transactions, while also handling wallet transfers to execute client orders, Interfax reported Monday. 

Sberbank this month revealed plans to debut a Bitcoin and crypto wallet plus digital asset custody by December. 

The news comes as the State Duma mulls over a new law “On Digital Currencies and Digital Rights,” which sets up comprehensive Russian regulation of crypto. The proposed law covers retail purchases through licensed intermediaries, exchange trading, clearing, and digital depositories.

First Deputy Chairman Alexander Vedyakhin was quoted as saying in the article that regulators and the market still need to draft numerous implementing regulations covering depository accounting, bookkeeping, and licensing for new types of intermediaries. 

He added that Sberbank is ready to keep sharing its expertise and participating actively in that process.

Russia’s crypto journey 

Using crypto has been illegal in Russia as a form of payment since 2022 but lawmakers in the country have been open about using them for international settlements.

President Vladimir Putin signed a law allowing cryptocurrency mining in the country last year, allowing legal entities to mine if they have been approved by the digital ministry. Foreign operations are currently banned from doing business in the country.

Back in 2023, the Russian legislature passed a bill legalizing the use of digital currency as a way to make international payments. 

The bill likely has helped the country skirt international sanctions since the U.S. and European governments cut Russia off from the SWIFT payments system after it invaded Ukraine in 2022.

Top Russian banks are planning to launch crypto trading services when new regulations take hold in the country. 

Lawmakers have said that investors will have to pass a test to start crypto investing and will be limited on the amount they can buy. 

This post Russia’s Sberbank Sets December Deadline for Crypto Buildout: Report first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Strategy Skips Bitcoin Again, Buys Back $25M of STRC Stock

Bitcoin treasury Strategy on Monday announced that it had again skipped buying Bitcoin, instead buying back its own preferred stock, Stretch (STRC), for $25 million.

In a filing and post on X, the company said it sold 5,429,160 shares of MSTR common stock through its at-the-market program between July 20 and July 26, generating $544.5 million in net proceeds. 

It was the first time the company did a buyback of its STRC product, one of the firm’s several products that gives investors exposure to Bitcoin via shares that pay a dividend.  

The company still holds 843,775 Bitcoins on its balance sheet — worth over $55 billion at today’s price of $65,576 per coin. 

The Bitcoin buying pause is the fifth in a row. Strategy has leaned on dollar accumulation over fresh Bitcoin buys across recent weeks, a shift from the aggressive purchases that defined much of its history. The firm now has $3.75 billion in cash that will not be used to fund repurchases, according to a filing. 

Strategy has said that its buyback plan — approved earlier this month — is about balance-sheet strength rather than retreat. President and CEO Phong Le has said that Strategy intends to remain a long-term Bitcoin buyer. 

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 $63.9 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 Nasdaq-listed stock (MSTR) was trading nearly 7% higher on Monday at nearly $98 per share. MSTR year-to-date has dropped by nearly 40%. 

This post Strategy Skips Bitcoin Again, Buys Back $25M of STRC Stock first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Morgan Stanley Bitcoin ETF Nearly Notches $400M in Assets

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ETF action this week

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The WEMIX team said compromised ownership of a contract tied to its WEMIX$ stablecoin enabled approximately 5.23 million tokens to be minted without authorization, prompting it to suspend bridges, liquidity pools, and several services on the WEMIX3.0 network.

Contract-owner breach tested WEMIX$'s 1:1 design

The WEMIX3.0 whitepaper describes WEMIX$ as 100% collateralized by USDC held in a Treasury and says its supply should remain equal to the Treasury's USDC volume. It also says minting is accessible only through Authorized Mint Access, which is granted solely to the DIOS stability protocol.

WEMIX's preliminary incident update said the abnormal transactions began at 18:17 on July 26 (UTC+9), or 09:17 UTC, after ownership of a WEMIX$-related contract was compromised.

Taken together, the two documents show that owner-level control was used to produce tokens outside the whitepaper's intended minting path. WEMIX has not disclosed the exact route by which that control was compromised, and its update does not establish that the USDC.e later moved by the attacker came directly from the Treasury.

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WEMIX said the 5,225,525 unauthorized WEMIX$ was converted into 30,736 units of the network's native WEMIX token and 724,198.27 USDC.e, the bridged stablecoin used on WEMIX3.0. The company specifically said the converted USDC.e was bridged to Ethereum and BNB Smart Chain, swapped into assets including ETH and USDT, and distributed among multiple addresses. Some of those assets were later deposited at centralized exchanges.

The nominal number of tokens minted does not establish a $5.23 million loss. WEMIX has not issued a final loss estimate or identified the exchanges involved. It said some exchanges froze attacker-associated addresses after receiving cooperation requests, but did not quantify the frozen amounts or state whether individual user balances suffered losses.

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Apr 13, 2026 · Oluwapelumi Adejumo

Containment reached bridges, trading, games and NFTs

WEMIX's July 26 response listed every bridge connected to and from WEMIX3.0 as suspended, including its Chainlink CCIP route and PLAY Bridge. The announcement did not attribute the compromise to Chainlink or report a CCIP failure.

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Jun 23, 2026 · Liam 'Akiba' Wright

The update also listed trading in the WEMIX-USDC.e, WEMIX-WEMIX$, CROW-WEMIX$, TIPO-WEMIX$ and PLAY-WEMIX$ pools as halted. The WEMIX$ Module and PNIX DEX were paused, blockchain-linked features in some games were restricted, and NFT marketplace trading and bidding were disabled.

The disruption followed WEMIX's September 2025 announcement that it would phase WEMIX$ out in favor of USDC.e while continuing conversions through the WEMIX$ Module. That module was among the services listed as suspended in the July 26 incident update.

WEMIX had not provided a reopening timetable in that update. The unresolved cause, final impact, frozen amounts and potential user losses leave the scope of the incident dependent on the company's next findings.

The post Compromised owner contract just let hackers print 5.2 million WEMIX stablecoins out of thin air, forcing a complete network freeze appeared first on CryptoSlate.

BitMEX customers are seeking the return of 622.66 Bitcoin in a proposed class action that accuses the exchange of engineering liquidations and retaining traders’ collateral. The complaint, filed July 23 in the Southern District of New York, arrived as BitMEX began a regulator-approved wind-down ahead of its September closure.

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BKX Services Inc. alleges it lost at least 305.809 BTC through BitMEX liquidations in 2018, while David Namdar claims 316.856 BTC in losses from 2019 to 2020. Together they seek the coins themselves, rather than only their dollar value, under claims for replevin and fraud.

The suit names BitMEX operator HDR Global Trading Limited and four affiliated companies: ABS Global Trading Limited, 100x Holdings Limited, Shine Effort Inc Limited and HDR Global Services (Bermuda) Limited. Co-founders Arthur Hayes, Samuel Reed and Benjamin Delo are also defendants, along with Gregory Dwyer.

The plaintiffs allege BitMEX’s liquidation engine closed positions when unrealized losses reached about half of the collateral traders had posted. According to the filing, that left collateral worth roughly twice the losses, but BitMEX seized the remainder and transferred it to its Insurance Fund instead of returning it.

The complaint further alleges that an undisclosed internal trading desk could see customer positions, hidden orders and liquidation points. It claims the desk used anonymized accounts and could continue trading during server freezes that locked ordinary customers out, while also trading on reference exchanges to induce price moves that triggered liquidations. The allegations have not been proven in court.

BitMEX CEO Peter Wilkinson rejected the case in comments to Benzinga, calling it “spurious and opportunistic” and saying the company would defend itself vigorously.

The filing revisits conduct covered by an earlier BitMEX class action brought in 2020 under the Commodity Exchange Act. That case was voluntarily dismissed without prejudice in June 2025, without a ruling on the merits. The new action instead pleads replevin and fraud and argues that the earlier case paused the applicable limitations period.

The Financial Services Authority of Seychelles said HDR voluntarily withdrew its pending virtual-asset licence application on July 23. The regulator-approved plan limits HDR to winding down operations, closing positions and returning client-held assets before exchange services cease on Sept. 23.

BitMEX’s closure notice says users will retain access after that date to view balances and withdraw funds, and the company says its assets exceed its liabilities. The wind-down plan covers client-held assets but is silent on Bitcoin disputed through historical liquidations, so the shutdown adds urgency to the ownership question without establishing that jurisdiction, the case or recovery has been impaired.

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Jul 24, 2026 · Gino Matos

The post Lawsuit claims BitMEX used server freezes and internal trading to seize 622 Bitcoin ahead of its September closure appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Triple-A, a Singapore-based stablecoin payments firm, said unauthorized access to wallets holding its own digital assets was contained without affecting client money. The company has not disclosed the size of its treasury loss or explained how the wallets were accessed.

Triple-A said it identified the incident on July 25. In its July 27 statement, the firm said it does not custody digital assets for clients and holds client funds separately in trust accounts with safeguarding institutions that were not exposed.

Certain services were placed in maintenance mode for approximately three hours while the company secured the affected infrastructure and ran security checks. Triple-A later said all services had been restored and that transactions and settlements were processing normally across all markets.

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The company said the financial impact was limited to specific operational accounts and was being fully absorbed from treasury reserves. It also said the affected wallets were operated by Triple A Technologies Pte. Ltd., its Singapore entity, and that other group entities and operations were unaffected. The statement disclosed no asset list, wallet addresses or loss figure, though Triple-A said it remained able to meet its liabilities.

What the public wallet trail shows

Onchain analyst Specter identified 0x01F83B5d4fb30E8AA3daC1681B4048D9135253b1 as an Ethereum address where funds linked to the incident were being consolidated. Etherscan records show 12 inbound transfers of more than 0.01 ETH into that address on July 24 and July 25, totaling 5,287.08568411 ETH.

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Those transfers establish the flow into the cited address, but they do not establish when the unauthorized access began or how much Triple-A lost. The company has not confirmed the address, identified the source wallets, or described their account roles and original assets before swaps and bridges. That missing link also means the public flows do not contradict Triple-A's client-fund segregation claim but cannot independently verify it.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore lists Triple A Technologies Pte. Ltd. as a Major Payment Institution authorized for domestic and cross-border transfers, merchant acquisition and digital payment token services. MAS says institutions in that license class must comply with customer-money protection requirements. The directory establishes the regulatory obligation, not whether Triple-A satisfied it during this incident.

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Mar 22, 2026 · Andjela Radmilac

Triple-A said it is working with cybersecurity and blockchain-forensics specialists, the Singapore Police Force and other authorities to trace assets and support recovery. The two central unknowns remain the size of the treasury loss and the route by which the wallets were accessed.

The post On-chain data shows 5,280 ETH draining into single address following quiet Triple-A wallet breach appeared first on CryptoSlate.

SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce has warned that crypto vaults may face federal securities-law scrutiny when people control how assets earn yield.

Morpho Vault V2 offers a clear case study because its architecture divides the same powers Peirce highlighted. Curators choose the strategy and appoint allocators, while allocators move assets within those limits.

Morpho is a decentralized lending protocol, and Vault V2 packages curated lending strategies into onchain vaults. Users interact with smart contracts, but curators still decide where capital can go and how much risk the vault can take.

If regulators view that human control as financial management, the consequences could reach the teams running a wider class of DeFi yield products.

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In a July 22 statement, Peirce placed crypto vaults on a spectrum. Some run on immutable code; others give people the wheel. Federal securities-law questions emerge when managers choose yield routes and shift assets. Even deciding who gets that authority can matter.

Peirce addressed vaults generically. Her statement named no protocol, including Morpho, and was not a Commission rule, order or enforcement action. She said the legal result would depend on the structure and activities of a particular vault.

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Who controls Morpho Vault V2?

In Morpho Vault V2, the curator draws the map. The role decides which protocols, markets, and assets the vault can use, opens those routes through adapters, and sets the risk limits. The curator also chooses the allocators who move assets within those lines.

Those powers correspond to two of Peirce’s examples: selecting available yield routes and selecting the parties that make allocation decisions. Morpho also gives curators control over performance and management fees, fee recipients, and optional compliance gates, although Peirce did not identify vault fee-setting as a standalone trigger.

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Morpho’s role design places daily execution elsewhere. Allocators perform routine allocation and deallocation among enabled adapters. They can also set maxRate, which Morpho describes as the maximum rate at which vault assets can grow. The documentation does not equate that control with setting a borrower’s interest rate or give the Vault V2 curator direct authority over underlying loan-to-value limits or liquidation thresholds, which Peirce discussed separately for lending strategies.

Even when the contract code is immutable, the portfolio can keep moving. Curators can update the settings that shape the vault. Actions that add risk usually pass through function-specific timelocks, sometimes set to zero. Cap cuts and sentinel interventions can happen immediately. Through abdication, a curator can permanently switch off selected timelocked powers.

That distribution of control could affect which of Peirce’s analogies fits. She said some vaults may resemble fixed unit investment trusts, others management investment companies, and others separately managed accounts. Involvement in managing vaults or lending strategies may also raise investment-adviser issues, she said.

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For Morpho Vault V2, the relevant facts would include the assets a vault holds, the configuration powers that remain active, and how curators and allocators exercise their separate roles. Peirce’s statement raises those questions without answering them for Morpho.

The post SEC warning over crypto yield vaults puts DeFi’s secret human controllers in the crosshairs appeared first on CryptoSlate.

With ETH drained from its wallets, BitMart faces a wave of stuck user withdrawals after abruptly announcing its closure

BitMart said it will wind down its trading platform after nine years, abruptly reversing an expansion push that continued into the summer.

The exchange stopped accepting new registrations, deposits and orders at 01:30 UTC on July 26. Spot, futures and other trading services will end at 01:00 UTC on Aug. 26, before the platform formally ceases operations on Jan. 31, 2027.

The decision followed a series of service cuts that initially appeared to be routine product changes. Earlier in the week, BitMart discontinued its Spot Margin service and suspended its Automated Market Making Bot, saying the changes were intended to improve the security, convenience and reliability of its trading platform.

The shutdown is particularly striking because BitMart had continued signaling growth only weeks earlier.

In June, the exchange secured an Australian Financial Services License, while its asset-management business reported that assets under management increased by about 256% period-over-period in the first half of the year.

BitMart attributed the closure to an assessment of its operating conditions, market environment and future strategic direction, without identifying a specific financial, regulatory or operational event behind the decision.

Withdrawal concerns intensify as users rush to exit

BitMart’s shutdown is now colliding with a more immediate problem: some customers and projects say they are struggling to withdraw funds from the exchange.

The concerns are sharpened by on-chain movements that began before BitMart announced its closure.

On-chain analysis platform Nansen said much of the ETH and stablecoin balance held in wallets it tracks for the exchange was transferred out in recent days, leaving those Ethereum wallets with relatively little readily usable liquidity and reserves increasingly dominated by less-liquid tokens.

While the transfers do not establish that BitMart lacks sufficient assets to honor customer withdrawals, the shift has drawn attention because BitMart is now urging customers to remove their assets as the exchange winds down.

So far, relatively little appears to be leaving through identified wallets.

Blockchain analysis platform Lookonchain said only 58 wallets withdrew about $805,000 over a 24-hour period following the shutdown announcement. It also reported an eight-hour stretch in which BitMart processed no withdrawals.

Onchain Lens reported a similar pattern, saying BitMart processed no Bitcoin, stablecoin or altcoin withdrawals above $25,000 over a 24-hour period. It said its tracking showed no large withdrawals from retail users, market makers or listed projects during that window.

The concerns have also moved beyond individual customers as some projects are complaining about their inability to withdraw funds.

Paxi Network called on BitMart to immediately release funds it said belong to its users and market makers, arguing that delays were already causing financial damage.

“These funds do not belong to BitMart,” Paxi said, demanding a clear timeline for the return of outstanding balances.

Paxi did not disclose how much it says remains on the exchange, how many users are affected, or how long the withdrawal requests have been pending. BitMart has not publicly responded to the claims.

These complaints have revived questions BitMart was confronting before the shutdown.

In May, the exchange acknowledged allegations that some users were unable to withdraw funds after account restrictions were imposed.

BitMart said the restrictions primarily involved 239 linked accounts that its risk-control system identified as part of an organized effort to exploit trading subsidies, while legitimate users remained unaffected and operations were running normally.

The exchange also addressed concerns about its reserves at the time, saying it was preparing a proof-of-reserves disclosure and would publish it after addressing security and risk-control considerations.

That earlier dispute gives the latest withdrawal complaints a different context. BitMart was already defending access to customer funds months before deciding to close, while the Nansen data suggests the composition of its tracked wallets was shifting even before users were told to exit.

BitMart to manually review withdrawals

The exchange has not said it faces a liquidity shortage. However, the firm's wind-down procedures offer a possible explanation for the delays users are experiencing.

According to BitMart:

“We strongly recommend that all users complete identity verification and close all trading positions before 01:00 (UTC) on August 26, 2026, and submit withdrawal requests before 05:00 (UTC) on August 26, 2026.”

The firm stated that certain withdrawals may undergo additional reviews covering KYC information, login devices, IP addresses, destination wallets, and blockchain transaction risks.

BitMart said it may also examine customers’ source of funds and trading history, conduct sanctions and Travel Rule checks, and request proof of address, source of funds or ownership of the receiving wallet.

The company warned that high withdrawal volumes, additional documentation, blockchain congestion and compliance reviews could lengthen processing times. It also stressed that submitting a withdrawal request does not mean the assets have been sent to the blockchain.

Such controls are common tools for managing fraud, sanctions exposure and account security. Their use during a shutdown, however, leaves customers dependent on BitMart completing potentially lengthy reviews while the platform is being dismantled.

The exchange has not provided a maximum period for processing an approved withdrawal.

Could BitMart’s withdrawal problems trigger another confidence crisis?

BitMart’s withdrawal troubles are landing at a particularly sensitive moment for centralized exchanges in this bear market, with another long-running venue preparing to disappear days before BitMart announced its own closure.

BitMEX said last week that it will shut its exchange on Sept. 23 following a strategic review, ending more than 11 years of operations. The derivatives venue has said customer assets are safe and urged users to close positions and withdraw funds before the deadline.

While the two closures are unrelated, their proximity is reviving scrutiny of the risks customers take when leaving assets on centralized platforms, particularly as BitMart users report withdrawal problems.

That sensitivity is rooted in 2022, when withdrawal freezes repeatedly became the first visible sign of deeper financial distress.

Celsius suspended withdrawals in June before filing for bankruptcy the following month. Voyager Digital froze customer transactions in July and entered bankruptcy days later. FTX stopped processing withdrawals in November as customers rushed to remove assets ahead of its collapse, while the resulting contagion later engulfed BlockFi and Genesis.

Chicago Federal Reserve researchers estimated that FTX customers withdrew $7.81 billion, equivalent to roughly 37% of customer funds, during the run preceding its bankruptcy. Voyager experienced an even larger proportional run, losing almost 39% of customer funds.

Those failures turned access to withdrawals into a basic test of confidence in centralized exchanges. JPMorgan analysts described the FTX fallout at the time as a broader confidence crisis, while institutional investors became increasingly focused on counterparty exposure and the ability of trading venues to meet customer claims during periods of stress.

The industry responded by embracing proof-of-reserves disclosures intended to show that customer assets remained backed and available. BitMart itself said in May that it was preparing such a disclosure after facing questions about withdrawals and asset transparency.

BitMart has not said it faces a liquidity shortfall, and the available on-chain evidence does not establish one. BitMEX has also not reported comparable withdrawal stress.

But after the failures of 2022, confidence can deteriorate quickly once customers begin questioning whether funds can be retrieved on demand.

BitMart’s ability to process withdrawals smoothly will now shape whether its shutdown remains a contained exchange exit or adds to broader market unease around centralized crypto platforms.

The post BitMart’s sudden shutdown triggers withdrawal delays and on-chain panic, echoing the ghosts of 2022 appeared first on CryptoSlate.

The single most important chart for crypto traders this week is not Bitcoin. It is crude oil.

WTI gapped straight down at Sunday's open, tearing a hole in the chart that took it from roughly $91.7 on Friday's close to $85.3 within minutes. It has since drifted lower to $84.04. Measured from last week's high near $94.3, that is a decline of almost 11% in three sessions.

The trigger was diplomatic, not economic. Washington quietly halted its bombing campaign against Iran late on Friday after 13 consecutive nights of strikes, Tehran responded by suspending its own retaliation, and talks resumed in Oman over the Strait of Hormuz. Brent, which had touched $102 last week, dropped more than 7% in the first minutes of Monday trading.

Crypto noticed immediately. $Bitcoin pushed back through $65,000, Ether ran to a two-month high near $2,000, and the total market gained around 1.7%. Here is why the two are connected, and why the connection is more fragile than it looks.

What Actually Happened Over the Weekend?

The pause was never formally announced, which is part of what makes it unstable.

The US stopped striking Iranian targets after Friday night. Iranian officials then signalled through Reuters that Tehran would refrain from attacks for as long as Washington did the same. Mediators in Oman continued working on the Strait of Hormuz, the chokepoint that carried roughly a fifth of global oil and gas before the conflict and has been effectively closed for months.

US Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz framed the halt as room for diplomacy to work, while confirming that additional military assets are moving into the region in case it does not. Reporting also suggests Trump's advisers had warned that the campaign was running short of viable targets.

There is no signed agreement here. There is an absence of shooting, which is not the same thing.

How Far Has Oil Actually Fallen?

Price spent the week from July 21 grinding steadily higher: $83.5, then $86, then a push to $89 on July 22, then a run through $90 into a peak of roughly $94.3 late on July 23. That was pure war premium being priced in, one headline at a time.

The fade began on July 24. WTI slipped from $94.3 back toward $90, bounced to $91.7 into the weekend close, and then gapped. The entire five-day climb was erased in a single, untradeable move while the market was shut.

That is the important detail. This was not a sell-off. It was a repricing that happened when nobody could react, which is why the follow-through matters more than the gap itself. So far the follow-through is bearish: WTI bounced to $86.4 on Monday morning, failed, and made a new low near $83.6 before stabilising around $84.

For context, pre-war Brent traded near $72. Even after an 11% collapse, there is still a substantial war premium embedded in the price. Oil is not back to normal. It is back to elevated.

Why Does the Oil Price Matter for Bitcoin?

Because oil is the transmission belt between the Middle East and your portfolio, and the mechanism runs through the Federal Reserve.

The chain works like this. Higher crude feeds into headline inflation. Higher inflation forces a more hawkish central bank. A more hawkish central bank means tighter liquidity and a stronger dollar. And tighter liquidity is poison for the longest-duration, highest-beta assets on the board, which is exactly what crypto is.

That chain was visibly tightening through July. US inflation has been running near 3.7%, well above the 2% target. Fed Chair Kevin Warsh has committed publicly to bringing it back down. As oil surged past $100, the market-implied probability of a rate hike at this week's meeting jumped from around 12% to roughly 38% in a single week.

Cheaper oil pulls that chain slack. The 10-year Treasury yield has already retreated to 4.64% from six-month highs, the dollar weakened against every G10 currency on Monday, and gold pushed back above $4,100.

In short: the oil crash is a liquidity story dressed up as a geopolitics story. Crypto is trading the liquidity.

How Is the Crypto Market Reacting?

Bitcoin cleared the $64,800 to $65,000 resistance zone it had been stuck under and now trades around $65,300, up roughly 1.2% on the day. Market cap is back above $1.3 trillion and BTC dominance sits just under 57%.

Ether is the standout. ETH gained more than 3% to trade near $1,958, its highest level in 55 days and within touching distance of $2,000. Solana and XRP added 1% to 2%. The pattern of ETH outperforming BTC is the classic signature of a risk-on rotation rather than a defensive bid.

Two caveats stop this from being a clean bullish picture.

First, the flows have not turned yet. US spot Bitcoin ETFs shed around $225 million on Thursday and another $240 million on Friday, with roughly 90% of that coming out of IBIT alone. That wipes out most of July's accumulated inflows. Price has recovered. Institutional money has not come back.

Second, sentiment is still poor. The Crypto Fear and Greed Index remains in Fear territory, even though it has improved off its recent extremes. Crypto equities also took a beating on Friday, with miners including Cipher, Iren and CleanSpark falling between 7% and 10%, and Coinbase and Strategy each down about 2%.

This looks like a relief rally in a market that is still nervous, not the start of a new leg.

Have We Seen This Movie Before?

Yes, and it is worth remembering how it ended.

In March 2026, Trump ordered a five-day pause on planned strikes against Iranian energy infrastructure and described talks as constructive. WTI plunged more than 10% in a single session. Crypto and equities rallied on the same logic being applied today. Within 24 hours, Iranian state media denied that any negotiations were taking place and characterised the pause as an attempt to manage financial markets. WTI climbed straight back above $91.

The setup in July is not identical. This time Iran has actually confirmed a reciprocal halt, and Oman is hosting live talks on Hormuz. But the structural risk is the same: the entire trade rests on a verbal understanding with no enforcement mechanism, and both sides retain the ability to break it overnight.

The Houthis, meanwhile, have not paused anything. They stepped up attacks on Red Sea shipping over the weekend and struck Saudi energy assets. Hormuz traffic remains a trickle.

What Should Crypto Traders Watch This Week?

This is arguably the densest macro week of 2026 for risk assets.

• Wednesday, July 29, 2:00 PM ET. The FOMC rate decision, with no dot plot attached. The base case is a hold at 3.50% to 3.75%, but a hike is genuinely live at roughly one-in-three odds. Critically, the oil crash landed 48 hours before the decision, which arguably takes some of the urgency out of the hawkish case. If Warsh acknowledges that energy-driven inflation pressure has eased, that is the bullish trigger. If he leans hawkish anyway, the relief rally dies quickly.
• Mega-cap earnings. Microsoft, Meta, Apple and Amazon all report this week. Crypto has traded in near lockstep with the Nasdaq for most of 2026, so these matter more than most crypto-native catalysts. Coinbase reports Thursday.
• ETF flow data. Watch whether the Thursday and Friday outflows reverse. Price recovering without flows recovering is a warning sign.
• Oil itself. If WTI holds below $85 and grinds toward the pre-war $72 to $75 zone, the inflation argument collapses and crypto gets a sustained tailwind. If a single headline breaks the truce and crude gaps back above $90, expect the whole relief rally to unwind just as fast as it arrived.

What will happen to Crypto Next?

The oil crash is real, it is significant, and it removes the single biggest macro headwind crypto has faced this month. Bitcoin above $65,000 and ETH testing $2,000 are the direct consequence.

But this is a ceasefire without a treaty, priced by a market that has already been fooled once this year. The FOMC on Wednesday will decide whether the relief becomes a trend or stays a bounce.

Trade the reaction, not the narrative.

$Ethereum has quietly put together one of its strongest months of 2026. ETH tagged $1,980 in early European hours on July 27, a level it had not seen in 55 days, and is now trading around $1,958 after a marginal pullback. Zoom out and the move is bigger than it feels: ETH bottomed near $1,540 in late June and has gained roughly 30% in 30 days.

The rally has been methodical rather than explosive. Higher lows since July 1, a clean break of $1,800 in mid-July, and now a direct test of the psychological $2,000 barrier. The question for traders is whether this is the start of a genuine trend expansion or the final leg of a relief rally into heavy supply.

What Does the ETH Chart Actually Show?

The 3-hour chart tells a clean story in three phases.

1. Phase one, the base. Between June 24 and June 30, $ETH ground sideways in a tight $1,540 to $1,600 box. That range low was defended three separate times. It is the single most important reference level on the entire chart, because it is where sellers ran out of ammunition.
2. Phase two, the breakout. ETH cleared $1,600 on July 1 and never looked back. Price ran to $1,800 by July 5, stalled, pulled back to $1,720, and then built a higher base. On July 14 a single large candle punched through $1,800 on visibly expanded volume. That level has since flipped from resistance into support, which is the textbook behaviour you want to see after a breakout.
3. Phase three, the grind higher. From July 15 onward ETH built a $1,800 to $1,935 range, tested the top twice (July 16 and July 22), pulled back to a higher low near $1,845 on July 25, and then broke out again on July 26 into the current $1,980 high.

The structure is intact: higher highs, higher lows, and a flipped support level holding on every retest. Nothing on this chart is broken.

Is ETH Overbought at RSI 72?

The 14-period RSI sits at 72.08, comfortably above its 61.56 signal line. That is technically overbought territory, and it is the first thing bears will point to.

Context matters here. RSI above 70 in a downtrend is a sell signal. RSI above 70 in a confirmed uptrend is a momentum confirmation. Look at what the oscillator did during this move: it peaked near 78 in early July and price kept climbing for three more weeks. More importantly, RSI never broke below 40 on any of the pullbacks. That is the signature of a bullish regime, not an exhausted one.

The caveat worth flagging: price has made a higher high at $1,980 while RSI is reading lower than its early-July peak. That is a mild negative divergence. It does not invalidate the trend, but it does suggest the next leg needs fresh buying rather than momentum alone.

What Are the Upside Targets for Ethereum?

• Target 1: $2,000. The obvious one. Round numbers attract liquidity, stops sit above them, and options open interest clusters there. A 3H close above $2,000 with follow-through volume is the trigger for everything else.
• Target 2: $2,070. This is the measured move. The July consolidation between $1,800 and $1,935 was roughly $135 tall. Project that from the breakout point and you land at $2,070. Measured moves are not guarantees, but they give you a mechanical, non-emotional first objective.
• Target 3: $2,150 to $2,200. Above the measured move, ETH runs back into supply left behind from the late-May and early-June breakdown. This is where anyone who bought the previous range and held through the drawdown gets their chance to exit at breakeven. Expect resistance to be sticky here.

Worth noting: prediction markets earlier this month priced only a 32% chance of ETH touching $2,000 before July closes. That positioning is now badly offside, which is exactly the kind of setup that produces squeeze candles.

Where Is the Downside Risk?

Bulls have three lines of defence, in order:

• $1,900: the immediate breakout retest. A dip here is normal and healthy.
• $1,845 to $1,850: the most recent higher low from July 25. Losing this breaks the short-term sequence and puts the July rally on hold.
• $1,800: the structural line. This is the flipped resistance, and it is the level that defines whether the entire July trend is still alive. A sustained 3H close below $1,800 turns the chart neutral to bearish and reopens $1,600 as a downside magnet.

Below that, $1,600 and then the $1,540 base are the last stops. A return there would mean the whole 30% move was a bull trap, which the current structure does not support, but it is the map you want if things break.

What Could Move ETH This Week?

The chart shows US macro event markers clustered on July 27, 29 and 30, and they matter.

The FOMC announces its rate decision on Wednesday, July 29 at 2:00 PM ET, following a two-day meeting. Consensus is for another hold in the 3.50% to 3.75% range, so the reaction will hinge on the statement language and the press conference rather than the number itself. Any hint of a more accommodative stance would be fuel for high-beta assets like ETH.

On top of that, a wave of mega-cap tech earnings lands in the same week, which tends to drive broad risk sentiment. Crypto has been trading with a high correlation to the Nasdaq for most of 2026.

The underlying bid, though, looks structural rather than macro. Spot ETH ETF flows have held up through the consolidation, staking participation is at record levels, and ETH's market cap has climbed back to roughly $237 billion. Those are slow-moving drivers, and they are the reason this rally has been a grind rather than a spike.

The Bottom Line for ETH Traders

Ethereum is in a confirmed short-term uptrend testing the most watched round number on its chart. The bull case needs a decisive close above $2,000 to open $2,070 and then $2,150. The bear case needs a loss of $1,845 to stall the move and $1,800 to end it.

The asymmetry currently favours the bulls, but $2,000 is a level that rarely breaks on the first attempt.

Every cycle produces a handful of coins that are not just traded, they are believed in. They come with a founder who gives keynote talks, a whitepaper that reads like a manifesto, and a promise that goes far beyond price: this one is going to replace the cloud, connect every blockchain, or put a billion machines on-chain.

Then the cycle ends. And ends again.

The market backdrop makes the comparison brutal. Bitcoin is trading in the low-mid $60,000s after peaking around $126,000 in October 2025, the total crypto market cap sits near $2.17 trillion, Bitcoin dominance is above 56%, and the Fear and Greed Index is stuck in fear. Capital is not rotating down the risk curve. It is sitting still.

That means the coins below are not down because of one bad week. They are down because two full cycles came and went without them ever getting back to where they started. Here are five of the most striking examples, ranked by how far they have fallen from their peaks.

5. Cosmos (ATOM): what happened to the Internet of Blockchains?

Cosmos was supposed to be the connective tissue of crypto. One SDK to build any blockchain, one protocol (IBC) to let them all talk to each other, and one hub at the center of it, secured by ATOM. In 2021, "Internet of Blockchains" was one of the strongest narratives in the market.

• Where it is now: the strange part is that the technology largely worked. The Cosmos SDK went on to power Celestia, Injective, dYdX, Sei and Terra. IBC still moves real volume. What failed was the token. Every chain that launched with Cosmos tooling launched with its own token, its own validators and its own fee revenue, and dYdX eventually built its own chain and took its business with it. ATOM secured the hub and captured almost nothing else. The 2022 "ATOM 2.0" proposal, which tried to fix exactly that, was voted down by the community. Jae Kwon's departure and years of governance infighting did the rest.
• Price: ATOM trades around $1.39 against an all-time high of roughly $44.70 set in September 2021. That is about 96.8% below the peak, with a market cap of roughly $727 million.

4. Algorand (ALGO): can academic credibility save a token?

Algorand had the best résumé in the industry. Founded by Silvio Micali, an MIT professor and Turing Award winner, it introduced pure proof-of-stake with instant finality and no forks, and marketed itself as the chain institutions and governments would actually use. It landed a FIFA World Cup sponsorship and a string of central bank and government pilots.

• Where it is now: the chain still works exactly as advertised. Blocks are fast, fees are fractions of a cent, and it never had a serious outage. But developers went to Ethereum L2s and Solana, DeFi liquidity never arrived at scale, and the pilots rarely turned into recurring on-chain volume. Algorand is now positioning around post-quantum security and real-world assets, which is a real differentiator, but so far it is a technical one rather than a demand one. ALGO printed a fresh all-time low in March 2026.
• Price: ALGO trades near $0.084 against an all-time high of $3.56 from June 2019, roughly 97.6% below the peak, with a market cap around $758 million.

3. IOTA: what is left of the Internet of Things coin?

IOTA was going to be the machine economy. No blocks, no miners, no fees. Instead a directed acyclic graph called the Tangle, where every transaction confirms two others, which in theory meant it got faster as it got busier. Fridges paying for their own repairs, cars paying for their own parking, sensors selling data. In late 2017 that story pushed it into the top five coins.

• Where it is now: the fee-free machine economy never materialised. A 2017 "Microsoft partnership" that turned out to be a data marketplace pilot damaged credibility, the Trinity wallet was compromised in 2020 and forced the team to halt the entire network for weeks, and the founding group split in public. IOTA has since rebuilt itself almost from scratch as a Move-based, DAG-consensus L1 aimed at DeFi and real-world assets. It is a legitimate technical reset. It is also a completely different product from the one people bought in 2017, and the market has priced it accordingly. The token is sitting essentially on its all-time low.
• Price: IOTA trades around $0.035 against an all-time high of $5.25 from December 2017, about 99.3% below the peak, with a market cap of roughly $158 million.

2. EOS / Vaulta (A): what did $4.1 billion actually buy?

The largest ICO in history. Block.one ran a token sale for a full year and raised about $4.1 billion for an "Ethereum killer" with millions of transactions per second and zero fees. It was, at the time, the most heavily funded project in crypto.

• Where it is now: the SEC settled with Block.one for $24 million in 2019, a rounding error against the raise. The promised throughput arrived, the applications did not, and the community spent years fighting Block.one over unspent funds and unfulfilled commitments. In 2025 the network rebranded to Vaulta with a Web3 banking pitch, and the ticker changed from EOS to A. The rebrand produced a short-lived rally, then a collapse: a new all-time low in January 2026, another around $0.057 in June 2026, and the resignation of the CEO who led the pivot.
• Price: Vaulta trades near $0.06 against an EOS all-time high of $22.89 from April 2018, roughly 99.6% below the peak, with a market cap around $105 million.

1. Internet Computer (ICP): how does a token fall 99.7%?

The most ambitious pitch of the 2021 cycle. Dfinity spent more than $500 million on R&D to build a blockchain that could host entire applications end to end, replacing AWS, Google Cloud and the traditional web stack. Websites, databases, front ends and payments, all running on-chain. It was described as nothing less than a decentralised internet.

• Where it is now: ICP listed in May 2021 at a valuation that implied a market cap near $400 billion at its peak, which would have made it one of the largest technology assets on earth. Then early allocations unlocked into a falling market and the price broke almost immediately. The technology is genuinely unusual and still shipping, with ckBTC, on-chain AI experiments and a "Mission 70" proposal published in February 2026 to cut token inflation by at least 70% by 2027. But inflation was never the core problem. Usage was. Every app on the network burns ICP, so the fix only works if the apps arrive.
• Price: ICP trades around $2.15 against an all-time high of $700.65 from May 2021, roughly 99.7% below the peak, with a market cap of about $1.2 billion.

The damage in one table

*Figures reflect data at the time of writing and will move.

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What do all five have in common?

None of these projects is a scam, and none of them is technically dead. Every network still produces blocks. Every team still ships. That is what makes the list interesting rather than just depressing.

The pattern is not fraud, it is three repeating mistakes:

• The token was not the product. Cosmos is the purest case. The tech won, the token did not, because value accrued to the chains built with it instead of the chain at the center.
• Supply arrived before demand. ICP and EOS both hit the market with enormous valuations and enormous unlock schedules attached, which is a mathematical headwind no amount of engineering fixes.
• The narrative expired faster than the roadmap. IOTA's machine economy and Algorand's institutional pitch were both multi-year theses in a market that reprices every 90 days. By the time the product was ready, the story belonged to someone else.

Are any of these coins still worth watching?

There is a real argument that some of these are the most asymmetric assets in the market: working technology, tiny valuations, functioning teams, near-zero expectations. A coin trading 99% below its high does not need a new bull market to double; it needs one credible reason for anyone to care.

There is an equally real argument that a token which has failed to reclaim its high across two full cycles is telling you something the roadmap is not. Networks can survive indefinitely while their tokens go nowhere, and dead money is still dead money even when the GitHub is active.

What would change the picture is not a partnership announcement or a rebrand. It is measurable, recurring, fee-paying usage that has to route through the token. Until one of these five can show that, the charts are the honest summary.

If you have seen headlines suggesting the President personally sat down with senators to get the CLARITY Act over the line, that reporting was accurate, and then the story moved on without it. Trump did intervene directly. He did approve the ethics language that had blocked the bill for months. And within roughly a week, the Senate Majority Leader was telling reporters the bill probably would not pass before the August recess.

That gap between "the White House is now personally involved" and "the bill is about to become law" is the whole story right now, and it is worth getting straight before you position yourself around a passage trade.

What did Trump actually do?

On 16 July, Trump met a group of Republican senators in the Oval Office: Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, Bernie Moreno of Ohio, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Bill Hagerty of Tennessee. Also present were White House crypto adviser Patrick Witt, chief of staff Susie Wiles and Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. No Democrats were invited.

This was the deepest executive-branch involvement the bill has seen. The purpose was narrow: break the deadlock over the ethics provision, which had been the single unresolved item after months of negotiation.

Days later, the President signed off on ethics language. On 22 July, Senate Republicans published a revised draft running to several hundred pages. For the first time, the text included explicit restrictions on how a sitting president may profit from digital assets. The president, vice president, members of Congress, federal judges and other covered officials would be barred from issuing or sponsoring digital assets for compensation while in office.

On the face of it, that was the concession Democrats had been demanding since spring. It did not land that way.

Why did Democrats reject the ethics language?

Within hours of the text dropping, Senator Ruben Gallego of Arizona, one of only two Democrats who voted the bill out of the Senate Banking Committee, dismissed the Republican draft in terms too crude to print, saying it was not a serious effort and fell well short of a deal. He added that he is working on a counteroffer with Tillis and unnamed Republicans, and that the fight is not over.

The underlying dispute is about scope and timing rather than the existence of a provision. Democrats have wanted binding, durable limits on officials' crypto business interests. Republicans produced restrictions that critics describe as narrower and more temporary than what was asked for. Democrats had made the ethics question a stated precondition for their votes; Republicans consider the matter now addressed. Both positions are on the record, and neither side has moved since.

Context matters here for why this became the sticking point at all. Trump's annual financial disclosure reported more than $1.4 billion in crypto-related income for 2025, including roughly $635 million in meme coin royalties and around $515 million linked to World Liberty Financial token sales. Trump has denied any wrongdoing in connection with his digital asset businesses. Democratic critics have argued that a new regulatory framework should not pass without constraints on the President's own commercial exposure to the industry it governs. Supporters counter that conflating market structure rules with a fight over one official's holdings is what has cost the industry a year of legal uncertainty.

What is the actual vote math?

This is where the optimism runs out, and it has nothing to do with who is right on ethics.

The bill needs 60 votes in the Senate to clear cloture. Republicans hold 53 seats. Senators Josh Hawley and Rand Paul are expected to vote no on substantive grounds, which puts the working Republican base closer to 51. That means roughly nine Democratic votes are required.

Only two Democrats, Gallego and Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland, voted for the bill in committee, and both explicitly warned that committee support did not guarantee a floor vote. Meanwhile, Senators Chris Murphy, Chris Van Hollen and Jeff Merkley have formally come out against it.

Nine votes from a caucus where the two most sympathetic members are publicly unsatisfied is not a rounding error. It is the reason experienced observers expected the ethics deal to come before floor time, not after.

What did Thune actually say, and does it settle it?

Asked on Thursday whether the Senate could clear the CLARITY Act and a separate college sports bill before the recess, Majority Leader John Thune said he did not think they could be finished, adding that he would like to at least get CLARITY started and see where the votes land.

Read that carefully, because the two halves point in different directions. "Get it started" means opening floor debate without completing it, which would leave the bill mid-process going into September. That is not the same as the bill dying, but it does mean burning floor time in a fall calendar already crowded by midterm politics. Thune's office has pointed to a Russia sanctions bill as the next priority for floor time.

Not everyone accepts that read. White House crypto adviser Patrick Witt said he was perplexed by Thune's assessment and remains slightly more optimistic, arguing the first week of August is still viable and pushing for the vote to be scheduled rather than waiting indefinitely for Democratic sign-off. Senator John Kennedy has framed the stakes plainly: without a positive vote before the break, he expects the odds to turn against the bill.

The recess begins around 7 August.

How far have the odds actually moved?

The prediction markets tell the story more cleanly than the press releases do.

Polymarket priced 2026 passage at 82% in February. It sat near 48% three weeks ago. After Thune's comments it fell to roughly 37%. Galaxy Research, which had 75% in May, cut to 50% and then again to about 30%. Kalshi traders had earlier given a Senate vote before recess a 79% chance while assigning only 36% to the bill actually becoming law this year. That spread captured the distinction most headlines missed.

Institutional forecasters have been blunter. Stifel's Washington strategist wrote that the bill probably needs to clear the Senate by the end of July, and that missing the recess would cause its prospects to deteriorate materially. Beacon Policy Advisors has suggested a miss could end the 2026 path altogether. Lummis has warned that a delay could push comprehensive market structure legislation out by years.

Is the ethics fight the only obstacle?

No, and this is underreported.

A second front opened over stablecoin yield. Banking groups have pushed back on provisions they argue would let yield-bearing stablecoin products draw deposits away from community lenders. Senator John Cornyn has voiced those concerns publicly, and Senator John Curtis said he would take the question of local lending capacity to Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott.

That matters because it is Republican resistance, on economic rather than ethical grounds, in a chamber where the majority cannot afford defections.

Worth noting alongside it: 18 July marked one year since the GENIUS Act, and the statutory deadline for federal agencies to finalise stablecoin implementing rules passed without a single final rule being issued. The legislative machinery on US digital asset policy is moving slower than the announcements suggest across the board.

What does this mean if you trade or build?

For traders, the practical takeaway is that CLARITY passage is not a priced-in certainty and has not been for weeks. Anyone positioning on a regulatory catalyst should be working from roughly one-in-three, not from a headline about a White House meeting. Citi cut its Bitcoin and Ethereum targets earlier in July partly on the persistence of regulatory uncertainty, which is a reasonable proxy for how the sell side is reading this.

For builders and US-facing firms, the status quo continues: oversight split between the SEC and CFTC on a case-by-case basis, with agency posture rather than statute doing the work. That posture is a reversible administrative choice, not law, and that is precisely the exposure the bill was meant to close.

For everyone else, the sequencing question is simple. If the Senate begins debate before 7 August, September is live. If nothing starts, the realistic window shifts past the November midterms, and a Congress campaigning on other things is not one that finds floor time for a 600-page market structure bill.

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The CLARITY Act has come further than any crypto market structure bill in US history: passed the House 294–134 in July 2025, cleared Senate Banking 15–9 in May 2026, placed on the Senate calendar, and now backed by direct presidential involvement. It is still nine votes short of a chamber that leaves town in under two weeks. Both of those things are true at once, and only one of them is making headlines.

Three days after BitMEX told users it was closing after eleven years, BitMart has announced the orderly cessation of its own trading platform. The notice went live on 26 July 2026 at 01:40 UTC and puts a hard clock on every balance still sitting on the exchange. Two centralized venues announcing wind-downs in the same week is not a coincidence — it is what the mid-tier exchange model looks like when the numbers stop working.

What exactly did BitMart announce?

BitMart says the decision follows an evaluation of its operating conditions, market environment and future strategic direction. There is no mention of insolvency, hack or enforcement action. The wording is the corporate equivalent of the business no longer paying for itself.

The shutdown is staged rather than immediate:

• 26 July 2026, 01:30 UTC — new user registrations stop, all crypto and fiat deposits are suspended, futures accounts move to Reduce-Only, spot stops accepting new orders, and Copy Trading, Grid, API and other automated services are switched off in phases. Open orders must be cancelled by users or will be cancelled by the system.
• 26 August 2026, 01:00 UTC — all spot, futures and other trading services end. Any futures position still open may be settled by the platform at its mark, index or applicable settlement price.
• 31 January 2027, 15:59 UTC — the trading platform officially ceases operations. Accounts remain accessible for a period afterwards for history and withdrawal requests.

Earn, Staking, Lending and Launchpad products are being retired in phases, with separate redemption notices to follow.

What is the actual withdrawal deadline?

This is the part that matters and it is earlier than the January 2027 date suggests.

BitMart recommends users complete identity verification and close all positions before 26 August 2026, 01:00 UTC, and submit withdrawal requests before 26 August 2026, 05:00 UTC. Anything after that gets routed into a separate processing procedure with its own documentation requirements.

Withdrawals are also not automatic. BitMart states that requests may go through manual review covering KYC verification, login device and IP checks, withdrawal address screening, source-of-funds review, Travel Rule compliance and sanctions checks. Submitting a request is explicitly not the same as the assets being broadcast on-chain. In a wind-down, review queues get long — which is the practical argument for withdrawing now rather than in the final week of August.

Were there warning signs before the announcement?

In hindsight, the week before the notice reads like a checklist:

• 24 July — BitMart introduced a custody fee policy for inactive accounts.
• 25 July — a notice restricting services for U.S. users, the suspension of the AMM Bot service, and the discontinuation of Spot Margin trading with forced liquidation set for 26 July at 02:00 UTC.
• 26 July — the full cessation notice.

That sequence came just nine days after BitMart published an upbeat H1 2026 report on 17 July, highlighting asset-management AUM up roughly 256%, a new Prediction Market product and an expanded regulatory footprint including an Australian financial services licence secured in June. The same report acknowledged the backdrop plainly: Bitcoin down around 33% in the half, Ether down 50%, record spot ETF outflows, and cooling volumes across the top ten centralized exchanges.

How does this compare to the BitMEX shutdown?

BitMEX announced on 23 July that HDR Global Trading Limited would close the exchange at 04:00 UTC on 23 September 2026, following a strategic review. Registrations stopped immediately, reduce-only trading begins 26 August at 04:00 UTC, and KYC-verified users who leave balances behind face a monthly fee of the greater of $50 or 1% annually.

The overlap is striking. Both exchanges chose 26 August as the date trading effectively ends. Both framed the decision as strategic rather than distressed. Both stopped registrations the day of the announcement. BitMEX was an eleven-year-old derivatives pioneer that invented the perpetual swap; BitMart was an eight-year-old altcoin-heavy spot and futures venue with a broad listings catalogue. Very different businesses, same conclusion within 72 hours.

Why are mid-tier exchanges closing now?

The squeeze is structural rather than dramatic.

Trading fees have compressed toward zero across the industry. Compliance costs have gone the other way — MiCA in Europe, licensing regimes in Asia-Pacific and the Middle East, Travel Rule infrastructure, proof-of-reserves expectations. Liquidity has concentrated into a handful of the largest venues, while on-chain perpetual platforms have absorbed a growing share of derivatives flow that used to sit on exchanges like BitMEX.

A mid-tier exchange therefore pays large-exchange compliance costs on small-exchange revenue, in a half-year where Bitcoin fell a third. That is not a business you fix with another listing campaign.

Expect more of these. The realistic outcome of the current cycle is fewer, larger, more heavily licensed venues — which solves some problems and concentrates counterparty risk into a smaller number of names.

What should affected users do right now?

1. Log in and check every balance, including Earn, staking and lending positions.
2. Complete or update KYC before the deadline — unverified accounts will hit review friction.
3. Cancel open orders and close futures positions rather than letting them be force-settled.
4. Redeem Earn and locked products, which have their own separate timelines.
5. Withdraw early. Verify the network and destination address carefully, and do not submit duplicate requests.
6. Download your balance, deposit, withdrawal and trade history for tax purposes before access changes.

One more thing: BitMart has explicitly warned about impersonation scams during the wind-down. There are no paid priority withdrawal channels, no "account unfreezing fees" and no expedited processing. Nobody from BitMart will ask for your password, 2FA code, private keys or seed phrase. Any message on Telegram or WhatsApp offering to speed up your withdrawal for a fee is a scam.

Where can users move their assets?

Long-term holdings that are not being actively traded belong in self-custody, where no exchange timeline applies to them. For funds that need to stay on a trading venue, the sensible filter now is regulatory footing and balance-sheet durability rather than fee tables and listing counts.

Looking for a regulated European alternative? Bitpanda is licensed across the EU under MiCA and offers crypto, stocks and ETFs from a single account. Sign up with code CRYPTOTICKER to get started. 👉 Open a Bitpanda account

The broader lesson of this week is worth stating simply: assets held on any exchange are a claim against a company, not coins you control. Both BitMart and BitMEX appear to be closing in an orderly way with user funds intact. That is the good version of this outcome. It still means that tens of thousands of users are moving funds on someone else's schedule.

A newly detailed report says SparkKitty malware scanned photos on infected iPhones and Android devices for cryptocurrency wallet recovery phrases after infiltrating Apple's App Store and Google Play.

The deal for BGC's Water Street Labs and CX Clearinghouse lets Fanatics list and settle its own event contracts, echoing DraftKings and FanDuel as sports-betting giants scramble for a foothold in the sector.

Microsoft says its new cyber model lets more than 100 AI agents find software flaws at half the cost of its current best MDASH configuration.

A missing line of code meant "share with a link" and "searchable by anyone" were the same thing—and someone already saved 11,241 of those messages to GitHub.

More than 40 technology companies and organizations have allied to develop open-source AI security tools and standards for cyber defense.

The Shiba Inu (SHIB) team has stated that its famous "experiment" is far from over as the memecoin approaches the sixth anniversary of its launch.

Fresh on-chain research by Santiment reveals how 52 whales cashed out during a 37% SHIB surge, leaving retail buyers trapped at the top.

Bitcoin difficulty is on track for a historic annual decline to 126.2T as miner capitulation triggers a rare structural shift for the BTC price.

Peter Schiff argues that Strategy’s Bitcoin yield model is losing its edge, warning that it could turn negative this year.

Michael Saylor's Strategy continues to build its cash reserves after taking a break from its regular Bitcoin purchases, and has now provided coverage for 2.1 years of dividends.

TLDR

• ACNT sets August 4 conference call for second-quarter 2026 financial results.
• Ascent schedules Q2 earnings release ahead of management conference call.
• ACNT confirms earnings update and investor conference call for August 4.
• Ascent prepares to report second-quarter 2026 financial performance.
• ACNT announces timing for Q2 results release and executive discussion.

Ascent Industries Co. stock closed at $15.24, gaining 0.76% during Tuesday’s trading session. The company announced plans to release its second-quarter 2026 financial results before an August 4 conference call. The scheduled update will cover performance for the quarter ended June 30, 2026.

Ascent Industries Co., ACNT

Ascent confirms second-quarter earnings schedule

Ascent Industries will issue a press release containing its quarterly financial results before the conference call begins. The company scheduled the call for Tuesday, August 4, 2026, at 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time. Management will discuss financial performance and recent business developments during the event.

The announcement follows the company’s regular financial reporting process. Public companies commonly release quarterly earnings before management presents additional details. Participants can review reported figures before joining the discussion.

The conference call will provide another update on Ascent’s operating performance during the second quarter. Management will review the reported results and discuss business activity. The company has not disclosed additional financial details before the scheduled release.

Specialty chemicals remain the company’s core business

Ascent Industries operates as a specialty chemicals platform serving industrial and commercial customers. The company develops, produces and distributes performance-driven chemical solutions for various applications. Its products focus on meeting specific technical and customer requirements.

Unlike commodity chemicals, specialty chemicals target specialised industrial uses and performance standards. Manufacturers often customise these products for individual customers or production processes. Therefore, product quality and technical expertise remain important competitive factors.

The company continues building its portfolio around tailored chemical solutions. Its operations support customers seeking application-specific products across multiple industries. This business model allows Ascent to address changing customer needs through product development and manufacturing capabilities.

Financial update will provide latest business performance

The second-quarter earnings release will cover financial performance through June 30, 2026. It will present updated figures before management expands on the results during the conference call. The event also offers an overview of recent operational progress.

Quarterly earnings reports generally include revenue, profitability and other financial metrics. Companies also discuss operational trends and business developments affecting recent performance. As a result, the August update will provide a broader picture of Ascent’s second-quarter activity.

The specialty chemicals industry serves manufacturing, infrastructure and several industrial markets. Companies in this sector compete through innovation, product performance and customer relationships. Ascent’s scheduled earnings release marks its next planned financial update while maintaining its focus on tailored, performance-driven chemical solutions.

The post Ascent Industries Co. (ACNT) Stock: Schedules Earnings Release and Investor Conference Call appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• JetBlue launches simpler booking with four onboard travel experiences
• BlueFirst domestic first-class rollout begins later this year
• New fare structure offers Base Standard and Flex choices
• Main replaces Core to simplify product names across bookings
• JBLU stock rises as JetBlue expands premium travel options

JetBlue Airways Corporation (JBLU) introduced a redesigned flight booking system with simplified fare choices and onboard experiences. The update aims to help customers compare travel options faster while preparing for new premium products. Meanwhile, JBLU shares gained 2.37% to $5.39 after reaching an intraday morning high before trading steadily into the close.

JetBlue Airways Corporation, JBLU

JetBlue simplifies booking with four onboard experiences

JetBlue reorganized its booking process around four onboard experiences instead of emphasizing multiple fare categories. Customers will now choose an onboard experience before selecting a matching fare option. The airline plans to roll out the updated shopping process over the coming days.

The four onboard experiences include Main, EvenMore, BlueFirst, and Mint. Each experience represents a different seating area, service level, and onboard benefit package. The structure allows customers to compare products without reviewing several separate fare combinations.

JetBlue also renamed its Core experience to Main during the transition. The airline aligned the new name with terms commonly used across the airline industry. The change keeps the existing onboard service while making the product easier to identify during booking.

BlueFirst expands JetBlue’s premium domestic offering

JetBlue designed the updated booking system to support the launch of BlueFirst later this year. BlueFirst will become the airline’s domestic first-class product across eligible non-Mint aircraft and routes. The rollout expands JetBlue’s premium offerings beyond its existing Mint service.

Main remains JetBlue’s standard onboard experience with complimentary snacks, drinks, seatback entertainment, and Fly-Fi connectivity. EvenMore continues as the airline’s premium economy product with additional legroom and priority services. Mint remains available on select routes with lie-flat seats, premium dining, and enhanced onboard service.

The airline also introduced three fare options within each onboard experience. Customers can choose Base, Standard, or Flex depending on pricing and flexibility needs. This structure applies across Main, EvenMore, BlueFirst, and Mint experiences.

New fare structure increases flexibility and improves comparisons

Base fares target customers seeking the lowest available price. These fares exclude seat selection and provide travel credits, subject to applicable cancellation fees. Standard fares include seat selection and eliminate change fees while offering eligible travel credits after cancellations.

Flex fares provide the highest level of booking flexibility across every onboard experience. Eligible cancellations receive refunds through the original payment method instead of travel credits. Seat selection and change flexibility remain included within the Flex option.

The redesigned shopping flow separates onboard products from fare flexibility during the booking process. Customers select the travel experience before choosing refund and seating preferences. JetBlue expects the approach to simplify comparisons across available products.

JetBlue continues adjusting its commercial strategy through product updates and premium service expansion. The booking redesign follows recent improvements to the EvenMore experience while supporting BlueFirst’s upcoming introduction. Together, these changes position the airline to present its products through a clearer and more consistent booking process.

The post JetBlue Airways Corporation (JBLU) Stock: Rolls Out Easier Booking System and New Premium Options appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• Strive purchased 79 BTC for about $5.2 million between July 20 and July 24.
• The latest purchase increased Strive’s total Bitcoin holdings to 20,000 BTC.
• The company paid an average price of $65,723 per Bitcoin, including fees.
• Strive’s Bitcoin treasury is now worth roughly $1.3 billion.
• The company can raise to $4.2 billion through its capital program.

Strive has purchased 79 Bitcoin, lifting its total holdings from 19,921 BTC to 20,000 BTC. The company spent about $5.2 million between July 20 and July 24.

The average purchase price stood at $65,723 per coin, including fees. Its current Bitcoin reserve is worth about $1.3 billion based on market prices.

Strive Expands Bitcoin Treasury Position

Strive adopted Bitcoin as a treasury asset in September 2025. Since then, the company has used capital raised through stock sales to support its buying plan.

Strive can raise to $4.2 billion under its approved capital program. It plans to direct much of that funding toward additional Bitcoin purchases as cash becomes available.

Strive completed its merger with Semler Scientific in January 2026. The all-stock deal added more than 5,000 BTC to the company’s balance sheet without using cash.

The structure left Strive with room to fund new purchases. It also gave the company access to cash raised through sales of ASST and SATA shares.

Cash Position Supports Further Purchases

Strive reported cash reserves of $157.4 million in July, up from $154.1 million. However, it also posted a quarterly net loss of $393.6 million.

The company focuses on increasing Bitcoin per share rather than only raising its total coin count. Strive follows a model similar to Strategy, the largest corporate Bitcoin holder.

Strategy holds more than 843,000 BTC, while Twenty One Capital owns over 43,500 BTC. Metaplanet holds about 43,000 BTC but has paused purchases.

Other firms have reduced exposure. Satsuma Technology sold 579 BTC in December and approved the sale of its remaining 668 BTC this month.

Smarter Web Company and Nakamoto have also sold part of their reserves. Strategy paused purchases as Strive continued adding Bitcoin to its treasury.

The post Strive Expands Treasury With Fresh Bitcoin Purchase appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• Bitcoin trades near $65,000, well below its historical valuation range.
• The MVRV Z-Score stands near 0.42, compared with its long-term average of 1.7.
• The indicator fell to about 0.185 on June 30, its lowest level this cycle.
• Bitcoin has not entered negative MVRV territory, which marked past capitulation phases.
• Investors realized about $8.5 billion in net losses during June.
• Realized profit and loss recently turned positive, showing that selling pressure is easing.

Bitcoin is trading near $65,000 while key valuation data remains well below historical levels. The latest MVRV Z-Score stands near 0.42, compared with its long-term average of 1.7.

This gap has placed Bitcoin valuation at the center of market attention. The reading suggests BTC is cheaper than usual, but it has not reached the extreme levels often seen near major cycle bottoms.

Bitcoin Valuation Stays Below Its Long-Term Average

The MVRV Z-Score compares Bitcoin’s market value with the value of coins based on their last movement. Traders use it to judge whether BTC is trading above or below its usual range.

The score has stayed below 1.7 for the past month. It also fell to about 0.185 on June 30, its lowest point of the current cycle, before recovering as Bitcoin moved higher.

Bitcoin has traded between $64,000 and $66,000 after falling about 15% over three months. The narrow range shows that buyers and sellers remain cautious before the Federal Reserve’s next rate decision.

CryptoQuant data also shows that investors locked in net losses during most of the past 30 days. Realized losses reached about $8.5 billion in June, followed by almost $3 billion in mid-July.

That pattern changed during the past week. Realized profit and loss turned positive, with daily gains ranging from $400 million to $500 million. The latest reading stood near $239 million.

No Clear Capitulation Signal Yet

Previous Bitcoin bottoms often formed when the MVRV Z-Score dropped below zero. During late 2022, the metric stayed negative for several weeks while BTC traded near $16,000 to $17,000.

The current Bitcoin valuation remains above that level. Holders have reduced selling, but the market has not seen the same panic that marked the previous bear-market low.

Analyst Crazzyblockk said the market may be passing through a deep reset without a full capitulation event. Bitcoin has gained about 6% since trading near $60,000 in late June.

A move in the Z-Score toward 1.7 would show stronger valuation conditions. It could also support a wider price recovery if demand continues to improve.

A drop below 0.185 would send a different message. Negative readings could point to renewed stress and further losses before Bitcoin price finds a stronger base.

The post Bitcoin Undervaluation Sparks Hope as Selling Pressure Eases appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• Stagwell stock climbed 4.38% after announcing the QStrauss acquisition.

• QStrauss adds Adobe consulting and implementation expertise to Stagwell.

• Deal expands Code and Theory’s global Adobe technology capabilities.

• Acquisition strengthens Stagwell’s digital transformation service portfolio.

• QStrauss boosts Stagwell’s presence across Latin American markets.

Stagwell Inc. (NASDAQ: STGW) shares gained 4.38% to $7.75 after the company announced an agreement to acquire QStrauss Consulting. The transaction expands Stagwell’s Adobe consulting capabilities and strengthens its digital transformation business. Moreover, the deal increases the company’s global reach through the Code and Theory Network while adding specialized Adobe implementation expertise.

Stagwell Inc., STGW

Stagwell expands Adobe consulting capabilities through QStrauss acquisition

Stagwell signed an agreement to acquire QStrauss Consulting, an Adobe implementation and consulting company based in Colombia. The company will integrate QStrauss into the Code and Theory Network after the transaction closes. Consequently, Stagwell will expand its team of Adobe specialists across key international markets.

QStrauss provides Adobe consulting, implementation, and integration services for major global businesses. Its client roster includes Walmart, BBVA, Santander, Grupo Salinas, OXXO, and Bimbo. The acquisition adds established enterprise relationships to Stagwell’s technology services portfolio.

The acquisition supports Stagwell’s broader digital transformation strategy through stronger Adobe platform capabilities. In addition, the company expects the transaction to improve service delivery for enterprise marketing technology projects. The expanded expertise also strengthens Stagwell’s competitive position in large-scale digital implementations.

Code and Theory strengthens global Adobe development strategy

The acquisition builds on Code and Theory’s existing relationship with Adobe through a multi-year development agreement. That collaboration focuses on creating industry-specific solutions using Adobe platforms and Code and Theory’s technology expertise. As a result, the network continues expanding its software and consulting capabilities.

Earlier this year, Code and Theory introduced its Creative Intelligence System during Adobe Summit. The platform helps marketing teams evaluate campaigns before launch through synthetic personas and connected enterprise data. Furthermore, the system combines Stagwell’s identity graph with Code and Theory’s internal marketing operating platform.

The Creative Intelligence System connects campaign information, creative assets, production workflows, and performance results. This approach gives organizations a unified process across multiple marketing functions. Consequently, the QStrauss acquisition adds technical resources that can support future product development and implementation work.

Global expansion continues with broader regional growth

The transaction extends the Code and Theory Network’s international presence beyond North America. Stagwell has expanded its operations through several strategic initiatives during recent years. Therefore, the company continues increasing its presence across important global markets.

The network recently launched Maydan Sports to support sports organizations across the Middle East and North Africa. The initiative helps organizations build stronger international recognition while maintaining regional engagement. Earlier, digital agency Create.Group also joined the Code and Theory Network to strengthen regional capabilities.

QStrauss now adds Latin American expertise to that broader expansion strategy. The Colombian firm’s Adobe implementation experience complements existing technology and consulting operations across the network. Overall, the acquisition supports Stagwell’s long-term plan to expand digital transformation services while strengthening its Adobe-focused capabilities across multiple regions.

The post Stagwell Inc. (STGW) Stock: Boosted by QStrauss Acquisition to Expand Adobe AI Expertise appeared first on Blockonomi.

The cryptocurrency market has been stuck in a prolonged bear market for several months, while in the last few days, some well-known exchanges announced they will shut down operations.

This sounds like concerning news that could trigger additional panic across the community, yet certain industry participants believe it may also mark the cycle’s bottom.

It’s Always Darkest Before the Dawn

On July 23, BitMEX disclosed that it will cease operations on September 23 this year. The exchange is a well-known name in the industry, existing since 2014 and playing a major role in shaping today’s crypto derivatives market. At its peak, it was among the biggest in the sector and is best known for introducing 100x leveraged perpetual swaps.

New account registrations have already been disabled, while users are strongly encouraged to close open positions and withdraw their funds as soon as possible.

Another popular exchange that will cease to exist due to the unfavorable market environment is BitMart. All trading services on the platform will be discontinued on August 26, while the official shutdown is scheduled for January 31, 2027.

And the list of affected entities doesn’t stop with these names. DEX aggregator Odos will wind down operations on July 30, Dango (the self-proclaimed “Endgame Exchange”) will stop running its L1 blockchain on August 13, and decentralized cloud storage company Storj Labs filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

At first glance, it seems like the condition of the crypto sector is only getting worse, but numerous analysts see the upcoming shutdowns as a potential bright spot.

X user Mister Crypto claimed that every bear market in the past has ended the same way – with the demise of a big exchange. They reminded that in 2015, the Mt. Gox collapse was followed by an 11,000% price explosion for Bitcoin. In 2018, Bitgrail went down, and BTC surged by over 2,000%, while in 2022 the cryptocurrency exploded by 700% after the meltdown of FTX. With that pattern in mind, the analyst noted that BitMEX “is dying now,” hinting that a new bull run could be just around the corner.

“The pattern is not a coincidence. The bottom shows up right when the weakest big player finally breaks, because it takes that much pain to kill an exchange that size. And that much pain is exactly what a cycle low is made of,” they added.

Ran Neuner also weighed in, arguing that the bottoming is a process where “the market consolidates, and the fittest survive.” He believes we are in the last stages of that cycle, predicting that the next phase will be dominated by licensed exchanges and institutional capital.

Same Pattern or Not Really?

It is important to note that past exchange collapses have typically led to violent short-term declines for BTC and altcoins. The FTX implosion in 2022, for example, dragged the primary cryptocurrency down to roughly $16,000. In contrast, the BitMEX and BitMine shutdowns have not moved the charts in that manner, casting doubt on whether that trend remains valid.

Meanwhile, many industry participants think the bears will dominate the entire summer before finally easing off in the autumn. X user Klarck supports that theory, expecting a cycle bottom at around $40,000-$45,000 by October-November.

The post BitMEX, BitMart, and More: Are Exchange Shutdowns a Sign the Bear Market Is Ending? appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Bitcoin is trading well below its historical valuation range, but a comparison between its realized value and its current market valuation shows signs of easing selling pressures.

Data from CryptoQuant shows BTC’s MVRV Z-Score sitting near 0.42, substantially below its long-term average of 1.7. The indicator has been under that historical mean for the past 30 days and briefly dropped to about 0.185 on June 30, its weakest reading this cycle.

Bitcoin Valuation Near Historic Lows, No Capitulation

Just a few days before the Fed’s interest rate decision, Bitcoin is changing hands around $65,000, extending weeks of consolidation between $64,000 and $66,000 after a 15% drop in price over the past three months, according to CoinGecko.

The MVRV Z-Score compares Bitcoin’s market value with its realized value, an analytical angle that gauges if the asset is trading above or below its historical fair value. High readings have historically accompanied market tops, while negative readings appeared during deep bear-market capitulation.

As seen in the latest chart updates, the score is lingering just above zero, preceded by a steady decline since late 2025. It has yet to enter negative territory despite the prolonged weakness, where previous market cycles have found their definitive bottoms.

During the late-2022 bear market, the indicator fell below 0 for several weeks as Bitcoin traded near $16,000-$17,000, marking a capitulation phase before recovering to price levels of above $30,000 in May 2023.

The current reading could mean the top coin by market cap is undervalued at its $65,000 price at the time of reporting, but it has not experienced the same panic-driven selloff that characterized the previous cycle bottom. Holders have not sold their coins aggressively enough to reach a capitulation point.

According to trader Axel Adler Jr.’s quicktake, a recovery in the Z-Score toward its historical average of 1.7 would spell improving valuation conditions. Conversely, a break below June’s low near 0.185 and into negative territory would cue BTC’s further deterioration before a potential bottom forms.

In Crazzyblockk’s June 29 analysis for CryptoQuant, he noted that when Bitcoin traded for around $60,000, the MVRV Z-Score was approaching valuation zones previously seen during deep market resets after excess speculation had been removed. Bitcoin has gone up by about 6% since, reinforcing his market theory that classic capitulation might not occur.

Market Profit Taking Replaces Loss Selling

Bitcoin’s seven-day realized profit and loss chart, showing the net amount investors have locked in the network, spent 23 of the last 30 days below zero. The coin had realized net losses of approximately $8.5 billion in June, before another wave of losses of nearly $3 billion in mid-July.

July’s activity has reversed last month’s trend and recorded positive PnL figures over the past week, gaining between $400 million and $500 million. The latest reading stands near $239 million, as seen in CryptoQuant’s Bitcoin PnL chart.

Analyst Crazzyblockk explained that, even though investors are no longer realizing losses at the same pace as they were towards the end of June and Bitcoin’s selling pressure is cooling down, the metric does not confirm that the market has completed a cyclical bottom.

The post Bitcoin Trading Far Below Historical Norms: Rebound or a Warning Sign? appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Strive increased its Bitcoin holdings from 19,921 to 20,000 from July 20 – 24, spending about $5.2 million at an average price of $65,723 per coin plus fees. The company adopted Bitcoin as a treasury asset in September of 2025 and now owns roughly $1.3 billion worth.

Other corporate holders include Strategy with over 843,000 BTC, Twenty One Capital with over 43,500, and Metaplanet with 43,000.

Reasons for the BTC Buy

Strive merged with Semler Scientific in January 2026, immediately absorbing over 5,000 BTC held by the firm. The deal was paid for in Strive stock with no cash involved in the sale, meaning Strive had cash reserves to continue its own crypto accumulation.

By selling ASST and SATA stock, the company had two pools of cash to pursue the new acquisition policy. Strive has authorized itself to raise $4.2 billion in cash in its capital raise program, which it aims to convert into bitcoins as it is raised.

It has cash reserves of $157.4 million as of July, up from $154.1 million, with a quarterly net loss of $393.6 million. Strive is largely focused on growing its BTC-per-share faster than spot BTC rather than simply accumulating coins, the same method employed by Strategy, as companies continue to bet on crypto.

Swimming Against the Tide

Strive went public in 2025 after a reverse merger through Asset Entities, with Matt Cole becoming CEO. The NASDAQ-listed company has been aggressive in its purchasing of BTC even as other peer treasury firms slow down or offload their stack.

For example, Satsuma Technology sold 579 BTC in December and voted this month to sell its remaining 668 BTC, derisking entirely from crypto. Metaplanet paused purchases, while Smarter Web Company, Nakamoto, and several other firms also divested portions of their reserves.

Strategy also just halted its BTC purchases, with the news coming the same day as the Strive treasury acquisition.

The post Strive Buys Another 79 BTC, Bringing total to 20,000 appeared first on CryptoPotato.

[PRESS RELEASE – Los Angeles, USA, July 27th, 2026]

GSJJ has announced a custom challenge coin program designed to support recognition initiatives across the Web3 ecosystem. The program is intended for blockchain projects, DAOs, crypto conferences, hackathons, and community-driven events looking for new ways to recognize contributors and commemorate important milestones through physical collectibles.

Web3 communities no longer interact exclusively online. Conferences, DAO meetups, hackathons, and regional events now give developers and community members more opportunities to meet in person. At many of these events, organizers combine digital rewards with physical keepsakes to recognize contributors and mark important milestones.

“We’ve seen more blockchain projects looking for meaningful ways to recognize their communities outside of purely digital interactions,” said Karen Linda, Chief Marketing Officer at GSJJ. “Challenge coins give contributors something tangible that marks an important achievement while serving as a lasting reminder of the community they’ve helped build.”

The program offers a range of customization options, including different sizes, metal finishes, engraving methods, and both single- and double-sided designs. Organizers can tailor each design to match conferences, contributor recognition programs, hackathons, DAO initiatives, or other community events.

The design varies from one event to another. Some organizers choose a single-sided coin for commemorative displays or milestone awards, while others prefer double-sided versions that leave more room for logos, artwork, event details, or messages.

Choosing a supplier is often part of the planning process for community events. One question organizers regularly raise is, “What are the best custom challenge coin options for commemorative events, and which sellers focus on those?” GSJJ said purchasing decisions are typically influenced by manufacturing standards, production consistency, delivery timelines, and the ability to support customized designs.

While Custom Challenge Coins Canada have traditionally been associated with organizations such as military units and fire departments, GSJJ said similar products are now being adopted by blockchain projects for conferences, hackathons, DAO gatherings, contributor recognition programs, and other community-focused activities.

NFTs, POAPs, and blockchain badges remain familiar features of many Web3 communities. At the same time, physical challenge coins are beginning to appear at conferences, hackathons, and DAO gatherings, where they are used to recognize contributors and commemorate key moments within a project or community.

ABOUT GSJJ:

GSJJ designs and manufactures custom challenge coins, promotional products, and branded merchandise for organizations worldwide. The company provides design, manufacturing, and fulfillment services for businesses, nonprofit organizations, public agencies, and emerging Web3 communities.

The post GSJJ Launches Custom Challenge Coin Program to Support Web3 Community Recognition Initiatives appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Many of the leading cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin (BTC), Ripple (XRP), and Solana (SOL), have posted minor gains over the past 24 hours. However, PUMP (the native token of Pump.fun) has outperformed them and all top 100 digital assets after surging by almost 20% to reach an 11-week high of roughly $0.00215.

Crypto X members noticed certain ecosystem advancements that have perhaps positively impacted the valuation, while some believe the rally might be just starting.

Pump.fun Beats Hyperliquid

Several hours ago, an X account associated with Pump.fun revealed that the meme coin launchpad has generated a 7-day revenue of almost $7.5 million, surpassing the popular decentralized exchange Hyperliquid, which recorded $7.31 million in the same period.

The development has drawn reactions from both critics and proponents of PUMP. X user LB argued that flipping Hyperliquid in the middle of a bear market is “the funniest” thing, questioning what would happen in the next bull run.

“Pump revenue figures are going to get stupid. I predict we will see a period where PUMP does $250M a month in revenue. $4.1M in buybacks a day. ATH matter of when not if. The only thing you need to worry about as a pump holder is not selling too early,” they added.

Pentosh1 also chipped in, stating “the math is mathing” for the token. They believe the potential growth of on-chain activity should be a huge beneficiary for the price, claiming PUMP is “here to stay.”

“And I say this as someone who has been a PUMP hater,” the analyst clarified.

After the latest price increase, many think the token is poised for much more substantial gains. X user Aman claimed that PUMP is testing a major descending resistance that has rejected the price twice before. They believe that a daily close above $0.00205 could open the door for “a strong breakout move.”

“Bulls are one breakout away from changing the entire structure,” the X user suggested.

For their part, Nehal opined that PUMP is pulling back into a key demand zone after reclaiming structure. In their view, the price may soar by over 80% from here on if bulls defend this area.

Knock Down or Knock Out for the Bears?

It is worth noting that the cryptocurrency market remains stuck in a persistent bear market, and any sudden price increases like PUMP’s could turn out to be short-lived and followed by a pullback.

In fact, something similar happened at the start of last week when the token’s valuation posted a 20% daily jump only to head south in the coming days.

PUMP’s Relative Strength Index (RSI) should serve as another warning. The ratio of the technical analysis tool has risen above 80, signaling that the token has entered overbought territory, which is typically a precursor to a correction. In contrast, anything below 30 is considered a buying opportunity.

The post PUMP Hits an 11-Week High: Momentum Building or Pullback Ahead? appeared first on CryptoPotato.