News Brief
Published Jul 29, 2026 12:58
News Brief

Bitcoin News - July 28, 2026 at 11:00 AM

Bitcoin News Jul 28, 2026 11:00 Scheduled 11 outlets
115Articles 115Extracted 0Failed 25.8mRuntime

Top of Mind

Bitcoin sits near $63,000 (down ~2.9% intraday to that low, trading around $64–65k after a partial recovery) as the July 29 FOMC decision dominates positioning. Citadel Securities is openly calling for a 25bps hike; CME FedWatch shows ~33% hike odds, up from 12% a week ago. The Clarity Act is simultaneously losing ground — Majority Leader Thune publicly doubted it passes before the August 7 recess, while Democrats rejected the ethics enforcement language. These two catalysts — rate risk and regulatory stall — are the near-term binary for Bitcoin.

Market Structure

  • ETF flows turned negative: Spot BTC ETFs shed ~$465M over Thursday–Friday, nearly halving the prior 7-session $999M inflow streak. BlackRock's IBIT drove ~$415M of the two-day exit. Morgan Stanley's MSBT was the lone holdout with inflows each day; AUM now ~$391M. Cumulative weekly result was still slightly positive (~$34M).
  • Strategy extended its Bitcoin pause to five weeks, holding 843,775 BTC. It sold 5.4M MSTR shares for $544.5M, raised its USD reserve to $3.75B, and executed its first STRC preferred buyback ($25M). Benchmark reiterates $570 target; MSTR up ~7% Monday.
  • On-chain signals mixed: CryptoQuant shows BTC supply in profit at ~57.5%, recovering from a 46% cycle low June 30 — but LTH-SOPR's 30-day SMA has been sub-1 for 50+ days. Galaxy data shows dormant BTC movement at a 4-year low, characterizing it as OG distribution slowing (not bullish confirmation).
  • Short liquidations spiked ~$250M in 24 hours as BTC spiked toward $66k Monday on Iran ceasefire news; funding rates remain near +4.5% 30-day avg (vs. +8.4% norm) — not crowded.

Policy and Institutions

  • Clarity Act in jeopardy: Thune says he doesn't have the votes; Democrats (led by Sen. Gallego) called the ethics text "not a serious effort"; NYAG Letitia James separately testified it would preempt state fraud enforcement. White House adviser Patrick Witt pushes back, calls Thune "perplexed." Galaxy Research cut passage odds to 50/50; Polymarket at 38%. August 7 recess is the hard deadline.
  • Trump disclosed $1.16B in 2025 crypto income: $526.8M from World Liberty Financial token sales, $635M in "Celebration Coins" royalties. Still holds ~15.75B WLF tokens worth ~$900M. This disclosure is the direct driver of Democratic opposition to the ethics provisions.
  • Coinbase settled FOIA suit with SEC for $150,000 — one of the largest such awards in SEC history — after the agency lost senior officials' communications during the Gensler anti-crypto campaign. Op-ed by CLO Paul Grewal in WSJ.
  • Bitcoin Security Consortium launched: BlackRock, Coinbase, Strategy, Fidelity, ARK, Galaxy, Anchorage, Block, Blockstream pledge $15M over 3 years for quantum-resistance R&D. Galaxy separately committed up to $5M in developer grants.

Network and Industry

  • Poolin filed Chapter 11: Once the world's largest mining pool (2019), now 0.2% hashrate. Estimated liabilities $100–500M vs. $1–10M assets; ~11,700 creditors owed $163.7M in frozen 2022 IOU tokens. $52M stalking-horse bid for two West Texas sites from Thor CALAP LLC. BitMEX (Sept. 23 shutdown) and BitMart also winding down — three exchange/pool closures in one month.
  • Miner-AI pivot accelerating: Hut 8 signed a 15-year, $9.8B AI data center lease (Beacon Point, 704MW contracted). IREN disclosed $2.8B in AI cloud contracts. Bernstein remains overweight miners, tracking 7.5GW+ in AI deals ($150B contracted equivalent). AI-exposed miners sold off Monday alongside chip stocks; pure-play miners (Riot -5%, MARA -3%) dragged lower by basket correlation.
  • BIP-459 draft posted: Fabian Jahr proposed a BIP for full BIP340 Schnorr signature aggregation (DahLIAS scheme), enabling cross-input signature aggregation (CISA). Two-round interactive protocol; 64-byte aggregate regardless of signer count. Miner support for BIP-110 sits at 0%; mandatory signaling window opens August.
  • Wasabi Wallet 2.8.0 removes centralized backend, fetching compact block filters directly from P2P network.

Macro Linkages

  • Fed rate-hike risk is the dominant BTC headwind: US 2-year yield hit 4.31%; 30-year testing 5% breakout. Citadel Securities publicly called for a July hike; CME odds moved from 12% to ~34% in one week, directly driving the Thursday–Friday ETF outflow and ~3% BTC price drop.
  • Iran ceasefire pause provided a Monday risk-on bounce: WTI pulled back toward $82 from >$100; BTC spiked to ~$66k; rate-hike odds eased from 37% to 33%. Strait of Hormuz reopening talks via Oman are the near-term geopolitical variable — any re-escalation feeds oil → inflation → Fed → BTC.

Standouts

  • Sberbank plans Bitcoin wallet + crypto custody launch by December, per Interfax, as Russia's State Duma advances comprehensive digital currency legislation.
  • Circle acquired IBM's entire blockchain patent portfolio (~1,000 patents), making it the largest US blockchain patent holder; CRCL +5% on the news.
  • SparkKitty malware (iOS + Android) scans photo libraries for seed phrases via OCR; confirmed in App Store and Google Play before removal — direct custody risk for retail holders.
  • Metaplanet acquired Siiibo Securities (Type-1 brokerage license), laying groundwork for bitcoin-backed "Bitbonds" yielding 4–6% with eventual on-chain settlement; Benchmark says market is badly underpricing this.
  • South Korea's five largest crypto exchanges saw combined volume collapse 89% YoY to $305M/day as KOSPI doubled; retail rotation away from crypto is structural, not cyclical.