Bitwise is the first to act on the SEC’s rule change, though analysts say it’s a backend fix, not a retail breakthrough.
Ethereum researcher Justin Drake unveiled the “Lean Ethereum” proposal on July 31 that reframes the base layer around the imperatives of survivability against nation-state and quantum threats and orders-of-magnitude performance gains without sacrificing decentralization. The new guidelines were dubbed “fort mode” and “beast mode,” respectively. Published on the Ethereum Foundation blog, the vision argued that […]
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The latest What Bitcoin Did episode, hosted by Danny Knowles, turns squarely to the question stalking one of the market’s hottest trades: can the boom in “Bitcoin treasury” companies withstand the next prolonged drawdown? Dylan LeClair, who helps lead the Bitcoin strategy at Tokyo-listed MetaPlanet, argues the answer rests less on ideology than on balance-sheet engineering, scale, and the willingness to endure volatility without blinking. “There’s sort of a ‘gradually then suddenly’ inflection point,” he said, describing how corporate exposure to Bitcoin has migrated from gimmick to boardroom agenda. The shift, in his view, is irreversible, but survival “is a constant fight with gravity” for firms that trade at premiums to their net asset value (NAV). Why Some Bitcoin Treasury Companies Won’t Survive The Bear Market LeClair’s thesis starts with market structure. Bitcoin is homogeneous collateral, but public equities are not. Liquidity, index inclusion, and the absolute size of a balance sheet produce a “winner-take-most dynamic,” he said. Even where two issuers have the same headline premium, the gravity of size changes the calculus: “Strategy is at a measly 1.8x premium, but the premium is like $50 billion of value,” he noted, contrasting that with the far smaller absolute premia attached to emerging players. Premiums compress mechanically as companies buy more Bitcoin or as the price rises, he added, which means maintaining a rich multiple demands ever-larger inflows of capital. Related Reading: Analyst Says Bitcoin’s Final Leg Is Near – Time To Be ‘Cautiously Optimistic’? Pressed on what a bear market would do to those premia, LeClair separated cycle folklore from funding reality. He does not buy the inevitability of a 70% “pack it up for three years” drawdown as a base case, arguing the market now tends to reprice and then chop for extended periods. But he is unequivocal that a risk-off phase would punish sloppy balance sheets. “There will be pressure on MNAVs… Are you levered? With what sort of debt? Do you have secured debt where your Bitcoin’s encumbered? Do you have debt due in one year?” By contrast, he pointed to perpetual preferred equity—dividends but “no debt maturity ever”—as a structure that removes the most dangerous cliff: “With the prefs it’s like, no, we’re not selling actually ever.” For MetaPlanet, he framed risk management in deliberately dull terms: “We’re focused on staying… pristine, maintaining maximal flexibility.” He cited a “BTC rating” of roughly 16.5x—“we have 16 bucks of Bitcoin for every dollar of debt”—as intentional dry powder rather than under-optimization. The stress test, to him, is behavioral as much as financial: can management “eat the 70% bear market” if it comes? He expects casualties. “It’s naive to say that every company that adopts Bitcoin will be a success… there will be failures. There will be a bankruptcy… it’s a brutal, competitive world.” Where, then, is the moat? Not merely in being public, he argued, but in graduating from equity capital to the far deeper fixed-income markets. Convertibles provided early leverage—but at a cost he described with traderly bluntness. Convertible desks “woo you,” then short aggressively to hedge, “dampening the volatility” that many treasury companies actually want in their common stock. The more durable solution, he said, is permanent capital in the form of preferred equity. Here he credits Michael Saylor’s Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) with reaching “escape velocity,” pioneering a layered capital stack that now includes a new variable-rate preferred dubbed “Stretch” (ticker: STRC). Stretch is engineered to keep trading near $100 by adjusting its dividend and, if necessary, issuing new shares or calling them at $101—“a pretty genius feat of financial engineering,” in LeClair’s words, because it behaves like a cash-equivalent for investors without imposing maturity cliffs on the issuer. Strategy priced STRC in late July with an initial dividend framework and then closed a multi-billion-dollar offering, with the company describing the instrument as variable-rate, perpetual preferred stock designed to pay monthly and target trading near par. LeClair sees this as the practical realization of a long-standing ambition in crypto finance: a dollar-like instrument tied to Bitcoin collateral, without forcing asset sales in stress. Unlike algorithmic stablecoins that were vulnerable to redemptions spirals, Strategy’s preferreds are senior to common equity and massively over-collateralized by transparent Bitcoin holdings, he argued. External observers have reached similar high-level descriptions: Strategy’s own materials emphasize STRC’s variable dividend on a stated $100 amount, while coverage in financial media notes the offering’s explicit aim to hew to par and its place alongside earlier preferreds (Stride, Strike, Strife) in a capital stack backed by tens of billions in unencumbered Bitcoin. All of this feeds the consolidation logic LeClair expects in a downturn. Preferreds, he said, are both offensive and defensive. Offensively, they add dry powder to buy more BTC or even buy back common if MNAV compresses, reversing flow against short sellers “playing this spread game.” Defensively, they function as an “MNAV defense mechanism,” easing reliance on converts and the gamma-trading that “neuters volatility” in the common. If markets turn, he anticipates classic Wall Street behavior: opportunists will “clear off some debt, buy the Bitcoin at a discount.” MetaPlanet, he added, is not seeking to be a roll-up; the focus is “laser” on BTC itself. Related Reading: Bitcoin Heat Macro Phase Signals Market Sits Between Accumulation And Distribution Could Anyone Catch Strategy? LeClair is diplomatic on peers bringing large private Bitcoin pools public, calling it “overwhelmingly positive” for the asset. But his competitive assessment is stark: “I think Saylor’s reached escape velocity… a 600,000 Bitcoin lead is pretty insurmountable.” To contextualize that claim with public data, Strategy now reports roughly 629,000 BTC, giving it a commanding lead over other corporate holders. He adds that only a mega-cap with a decisive pivot—“if Mark Zuckerberg took the orange pill tomorrow”—could realistically challenge, which he deems unlikely given competing priorities like AI. LeClair is no maximalist about smooth sailing. Premiums will ebb. Funding windows will open and slam shut. Some firms, he warned, are “cosplaying as Bitcoiners” and may abandon discipline at the first whiff of pain. He was also frank about the sector’s self-selection bias: during the good times, new “treasury companies” appear by the week; the real filter arrives when prices fall and maturities near. “The times are good now… there will be a cycle. That’s what will separate the men from the boys,” he said. Survival, in his telling, comes down to a few non-negotiables: unencumbered collateral, long-dated or perpetual liabilities, and management that will not sell into downdrafts. Yet his broader message is that the game board has changed. Corporate adoption remains “early innings,” he said, because “the rest of the world actually simply doesn’t care” yet. The depth of the credit markets—and the emergence of Bitcoin-backed instruments palatable to those markets—may be what finally does the persuading. “If Bitcoin is going to eat the world… it has to get to all these different pools of capital.” Treasury companies that make that leap, he believes, can not only endure a bear market—they can use it to widen the gap. At press time, BTC traded at $118,100. Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com
The new framework is aimed at simplifying the protocol’s design while preparing it for the security risks posed by future quantum computers.
Tyler Winklevoss and others say a16z Head of Policy Brian Quintenz, tapped by President Trump to lead the CFTC, is a flawed candidate.
Blockstream launched Simplicity on the Liquid Network, enabling smart contract programability on Bitcoin’s infrastructure. According to a July 31 announcement, the idea was first proposed in 2017 by researcher Russell O’Connor. Simplicity was designed as a clean-slate smart contract language that is more expressive than Bitcoin Script yet tighter and safer than general-purpose platforms. With […]
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In a post shared on TradingView, crypto analyst Xanrox argues that the current bullish cycle is nearly over, pointing to a potential downtrend that would see the Bitcoin price crash to $60,000. This analysis comes as Bitcoin is trading within a very quiet phase, prompting many crypto traders and crypto analysts to start reassessing its next direction. Xanrox Predicts Bitcoin Top At $122,000 And Crash To $60,000 The world’s largest cryptocurrency has been hovering just above the $118,000 price level for several days now, struggling to break decisively above this zone but also showing no major signs of a breakdown. Despite this consolidation, market sentiment remains upbeat. Related Reading: This Indicator Has Perfectly Called Bitcoin Cycle Tops, Here’s What It’s Saying Now The crypto fear and greed index continues to flash “greed,” and most analysts still argue that Bitcoin is setting up for another leg upward. However, an interesting technical outlook challenges this bullish consensus and issues a crash warning. Notably, crypto analyst Xanrox identified a sell signal on the weekly candlestick timeframe chart after Bitcoin reached the 1.618 Fibonacci extension and touched the long-term 2017–2021–2025 trendline, with the latest touch of the trendline aligning to Bitcoin’s recent all-time high at $122,800. According to him, the most recent touch of this trendline might be the top of the current cycle. Furthermore, he noted that the Elliott Wave structure has now completed Wave 5 of a rising wedge and a larger Wave 5 impulse move. As such, a corrective phase is about to start. What’s Next For Bitcoin? As shown in the chart below, the next major move could be at least a 50% decline, with Bitcoin dropping to around $60,000 by 2026. This projection is based on previous price action, where Bitcoin embarked on 84% and 77% price crashes after touching the trendline in 2017 and 2021, respectively. The technical setup also aligns with statistical data that shows August and September historically bring increased selling pressure. Xanrox noted that while traders can wait for further confirmation, such as a break below the 50-week moving average, he personally believes the top is already in. Large institutions and professional investors pay close attention to the 20, 50, 100, and 200-period moving averages. Related Reading: Bitcoin Short Squeeze Incoming As Market Makers Set Trap To Go Above $123,000 Xanrox’s outlook is a sharp contrast to the prevailing sentiment among crypto investors. Bitcoin’s current structure is still showing strength on higher timeframes, and several other analysts see the recent consolidation between $117,000 and $119,000 as a base for continuation toward $130,000 and beyond. The lack of major sell-side volume, the firm hold above the $118,000 price level and the 50-week moving average, and bullish indicators across altcoins like Ethereum are on-chain signals that the Bitcoin price still has more room to run before it reaches a peak price this cycle. Featured image from Pixabay, chart from Tradingview.com
A fresh wave of profit-taking from newly emerged Bitcoin whales has marked the third major distribution event of this bull run, according to CryptoQuant.
Tether's robust profits and strategic investments highlight its growing influence in global finance, potentially reshaping market dynamics.
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Global economic standards have been updated to formally recognize Bitcoin (BTC) and other crypto assets in national wealth statistics, marking a pivotal shift in how governments measure digital value and financial innovation. The new System of National Accounts (SNA), approved by the United Nations Statistical Commission and coordinated by the IMF and other global institutions, […]
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Bitcoin begins a 77-day historical countdown to its potential 2025 peak, with targets around $150,000 and higher.
The developer of design software previously disclosed ownership of $70 million of Bitwise's BITB, with plans to buy another $30 million in bitcoin.
The stablecoin giant said it has $127 billion in exposure to U.S. Treasuries.
The initiative will modernize the SEC for 21st-century finance and was formed in response to recent policy recommendations from the White House.
According to comments from Ripple CTO David Schwartz, XRP is still at the heart of Ripple’s payments system, even as the company highlights its new stablecoin, RLUSD. Related Reading: XRP Traders Pull Back $2.4B—Brace For Impact Or Buy The Dip? Ripple’s lead tech officer stressed that XRP remains the primary bridge asset in cross-border transactions—and that wider use of the XRP Ledger will keep boosting the altcoin’s utility and value. XRP Remains Core To Ripple Payments In a recent exchange, an XRP supporter pointed out that Ripple now mentions RLUSD more often than XRP. Schwartz replied that he doesn’t have the exact figures on hand, but he’s sure that Ripple uses XRP far more than any other digital asset for its payments service. I don’t have the numbers in front of me, but I’m pretty sure XRP’s use as a bridge in Ripple Payments dwarfs every other asset. I think stablecoins win for collateral use cases (volatile collateral is annoying) and edge use cases (volatility at the on/off ramps is also… — David ‘JoelKatz’ Schwartz (@JoelKatz) July 30, 2025 Based on reports, XRP still dominates as the bridge currency when moving money from one fiat to another. That role helps institutions send funds quickly and cheaply, even when market swings might make a stablecoin less ideal. Ripple launched RLUSD in December 2024 to meet demand for price stability. According to Schwartz, stablecoins like RLUSD make sense in use cases that depend on a fixed value—such as when firms use crypto assets as collateral or enter and exit markets without risking 5% swings overnight. He noted that Hidden Road, one of Ripple’s big partners that works with over 300 institutions, chose RLUSD as its main collateral asset in May 2025. That move shows RLUSD’s appeal for stability-focused tasks. Stablecoin Role Versus Altcoin Utility Schwartz drew a clear line between the two tokens. For tasks where price predictability matters most, a stablecoin helps avoid hiccups. But for the majority of payments, he believes a liquid asset like XRP does a better job—unless someone wants to avoid risk entirely. Holding major digital assets can capture upside, and XRP fits that need better than cash, he said. Adoption Drives XRP Demand Looking ahead, Schwartz stressed that real-world use of the XRP Ledger will naturally drive more demand for the crypto. As more projects and institutions tap into XRPL’s fast transaction speeds and low fees, they’ll need XRP to power each move. That design makes it harder to sidestep the coin’s native token than it is on other networks, where developers can wrap or bypass the base coin entirely. Schwartz’s remarks arrive amid community worries that XRP is being sidelined in favor of stablecoins. The choice by Hidden Road to back RLUSD raised eyebrows back in May 2025. Related Reading: Don’t Blink: 1,000 XRP Could Be The Best Move You’ve Made—Expert XRP’s Use Case But by highlighting how deeply XRP is woven into XRPL’s mechanics—and reminding investors that the altcoin’s volume still outstrips any other asset in Ripple Payments—Schwartz sent a clear message: XRP’s use won’t fade, even as stablecoins gain ground. Based on these comments, Ripple appears to be taking a two-pronged approach: use RLUSD where price stability is critical, and rely on XRP for its proven liquidity and built-in role on the ledger. That strategy could help keep both tokens busy in different parts of the crypto economy, ensuring XRP stays relevant even as new products emerge. Featured image from Unsplash, chart from TradingView
Firms looking to launch Solana ETFs made changes to their filings as they potentially inch closer to getting the SEC's sign-off.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will launch a commission-wide initiative called “Project Crypto” to modernize securities rules for blockchain-based activity and help shift US markets “on-chain.” Chair Paul Atkins said in a July 31 speech at the America First Policy Institute that the initiative will execute recommendations made in the President’s Working Group (PWG) […]
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Mill City says it is the only crypto treasury strategy, including coins other than Sui, with official foundation backing on the market.
The cost to mine a single bitcoin has nearly doubled year-over-year, following 2024's halving event and an increase in global hashrate.
Paul Atkins, the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, said "most crypto assets are not securities."
Compared to last year's quarter, Coinbase's total revenue came in relatively flat while net income jumped considerably.
Bitcoin’s new investor dominance is gaining momentum just as the asset consolidates in a tight range, setting the stage for a major breakout. After more than two weeks of sideways movement between $115,000 and $120,000, BTC continues to trade within this well-defined range—building pressure that typically precedes a sharp move. Related Reading: Bitcoin Heat Macro Phase Signals Market Sits Between Accumulation And Distribution Data from CryptoQuant highlights a crucial dynamic: the comparison between demand and supply from new versus old investors. The current new investor dominance sits at 30%, only half of the “overheated” range of 60–70% seen during euphoric phases, but the trend is clearly climbing. This means new liquidity is entering the market steadily, while old holders are still distributing at a manageable pace. The supply of long-term holders is absorbing this growing young demand without disrupting the price structure. This healthy balance suggests that the market is still in a stable late bull phase, with no signs of mass profit-taking or capitulation from seasoned investors. With Bitcoin maintaining a bullish structure and demand from fresh entrants rising, the coming days will be critical. Bitcoin Enters Healthy Late Bull Phase as New Investor Activity Grows Top analyst Axel Adler recently shared detailed insights into Bitcoin’s market structure, focusing on the balance between new and old investor behavior. According to Adler, previous peaks in new investor dominance—64% in March 2024 and 72% in December 2024—aligned precisely with local BTC price tops. At those points, new liquidity began to wane, and experienced holders ramped up profit-taking. Currently, new investor dominance stands at 30%, which is still far from those overheated extremes. However, the trend is upward. The purple fill on the chart, which reflects cumulative activity from younger coins, has been climbing steadily since July 2024. This indicates that a fresh wave of buyers continues to enter the market, while selling pressure from old hands remains limited. This dynamic creates room for further bullish continuation before the typical euphoria zone—above 60–70% dominance—takes hold. Old holders are still distributing coins, but only moderately. A coefficient of 0.3 means that three-year-old coins are absorbing demand without triggering major volatility. This balance suggests that the market remains structurally sound. Related Reading: BlackRock Goes Heavy on Ethereum: Buys 4x More ETH Than BTC Bitcoin Forms A Tight Consolidation Range Bitcoin is currently trading at $118,413, consolidating in a narrow range between $115,724 and $122,077, as seen in the 8-hour chart. This sideways movement has persisted for over two weeks, indicating indecision in the market. The key support sits at $115,724, which has been tested multiple times but held firmly, while the $122,077 level acts as immediate resistance after a strong rejection earlier in July. The price remains above the 50, 100, and 200-period moving averages, which now align in bullish order—another sign that the underlying trend is still intact despite short-term consolidation. Volume remains relatively low, suggesting that neither bulls nor bears are aggressively positioning at the moment. However, such tight ranges often precede large directional moves. Related Reading: Bitcoin Long-Term Holders Begin Distribution: Mirroring Fall 2024 Cycle If bulls manage to break above the $122K resistance with strong volume, it could trigger a continuation toward new highs. On the other hand, a breakdown below the $115.7K support would expose downside risk. Potentially leading to a retest of the 100-period moving average around $114,490 or even the 200-period average near $110,188. Featured image from Dall-E, chart from TradingView
Adam Back’s Blockstream has launched Bitcoin-native smart contract programming language Simplicity, offering an alternative to Ethereum’s Solidity.
Coinbase will roll out its new exchange offerings first to U.S. users in the coming months, according to the CNBC report.
Project Crypto could position the US as a global leader in crypto innovation by clarifying regulations and fostering a more dynamic market.
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The Bitcoin treasury company reported second-quarter earnings results after Thursday's closing bell.
XRP is showing signs of a double bottom pattern, a potential bullish signal, but bearish pressure still remains. According to our analysis, $3 support level is key, as XRP continues to hold above it despite market uncertainty. However, weakening on-chain metrics could put pressure on buyers, potentially causing them to lose momentum and increasing the …
Despite strong ETF inflows, ETH traders remain cautious as competitive pressures and weak network activity persist.
The firm held roughly $8.9 billion in bitcoin in the reserves, translating to roughly 83,200 coins.
Co-founded by early Bitcoin contributor Adam Back, Blockstream introduced Simplicity to solve the limitations of Bitcoin as a smart contract venue