News Brief
Published Aug 2, 2026 11:26
News Brief

Bitcoin News - August 2, 2026 at 11:00 AM

Bitcoin News Aug 2, 2026 11:00 Scheduled 11 outlets
117Articles 117Extracted 0Failed 26.8mRuntime

Top of Mind

The Coldcard hardware wallet vulnerability is the dominant event of the week for Bitcoin holders. Coinkite confirmed a firmware bug — introduced March 2021 in Mk3 firmware v4.0.1, later extended to affect some Mk4/Mk5/Q seeds — routed seed generation through a software PRNG with ~40 bits of entropy instead of the hardware RNG's 128. Galaxy Research traced 1,082.65 BTC (~$70.2M) drained from 1,196 addresses in a 41-minute window on July 30; losses may grow. Coinkite's CEO acknowledged AI may have been used to identify the flaw. Any single-sig Coldcard wallet seeded after March 2021 without 50+ dice rolls or a strong BIP-39 passphrase should be treated as compromised and migrated immediately.

Market Structure

  • BTC ended July near $62,500, down 3.5% on the final session, closing the month up ~8.5% — its strongest July since 2022 — but below the $65,820 50-month EMA that has capped two failed breakouts. Spot volume averaged $2.2B/day in July, near 2023 lows.
  • Spot Bitcoin ETFs finished July with $172.4M in net inflows, reversing two months of outflows, but the final session logged a $265M single-day outflow. YTD flows remain -$5.3B. BlackRock's IBIT led Thursday's $233M inflow day (78.7% of total). Ether ETFs outperformed with $365.2M in July inflows.
  • Coinbase reported a Q2 miss: revenue $1.2B vs. $1.3B expected; net loss $359M vs. ~breakeven forecast. Shares fell 7%+ after hours. Subscription revenue ($555M) and transaction revenue ($599M) both missed. Robinhood, by contrast, posted record Q2 revenue of $1.31B with prediction markets ($156M) surpassing crypto ($100M) for the first time.
  • Strategy posted an $8.22B Q2 loss (vs. $10B profit a year ago) on unrealized BTC markdown; paused purchases for a fifth consecutive week to rebuild a $3.75B USD reserve and prioritize returning STRC preferred shares to par. Holds 843,775 BTC.

Policy and Institutions

  • CLARITY Act remains deadlocked ahead of August recess. Senate Majority Leader Thune signaled it won't clear the chamber in time. Treasury Secretary Bessent publicly pressured Democrats to vote immediately, quoting Satoshi; Sen. Lummis blamed Democratic procedural delays. Prediction markets price 2026 passage at ~20%. SEC Chair Atkins said the agency will write crypto rules itself if the bill fails.
  • Trump's financial disclosures revealed $1.16B+ in 2026 crypto proceeds: $526.8M from World Liberty Financial token sales, $635M in memecoin royalties. Senate Democrats introduced an Anti-Corruption Bureau bill in direct response.
  • Circle secured an NYDFS limited-purpose trust charter (Circle New York Trust), pairing with its OCC national trust bank approval from July 10. Shares rose 8.4% on the news. Circle also acquired IBM's ~1,000 blockchain patents.
  • OFAC sanctioned two Iranian maritime firms — Persian Gulf Marine Insurance and HormuzSafe — for accepting Bitcoin to extort Hormuz transit fees on behalf of the IRGC. Iran's BTC use noted as sanction-resistant vs. freezable stablecoins like USDT.

Network and Industry

  • Coldcard exploit detail (see Top of Mind): Bitcoin Optech #416 confirmed Mk2 running 4.x firmware is also affected; Block engineers found only 32 bits of secure-element entropy reach the PRNG on Mk4/Mk5/Q. Coinkite released emergency firmware. Authorities notified; attacker used a paid blockchain-services provider account (unnamed at provider's request).
  • Binance faces dual pressure: NYT reported the exchange now routes most non-emergency law enforcement requests through UAE authorities, slowing investigations across five European countries. Separately, Reuters reported $676M flowed from Iran-linked Shelbit exchange to Binance addresses, $540M of it after Shelbit was fined by Dubai's VARA in January 2025.
  • Russia banned crypto mining across Moscow and Moscow Oblast from August 15 through end-2032 (Government Decree No. 936), citing grid strain of ~1 GW. Mining permitted in registered capacity elsewhere nationally.
  • VanEck's July ChainCheck: hashprice near multi-year lows at ~$30.6/PH/day; miner revenue -39.5% YoY; long-term holders now control 60.8% of supply, a figure still rising through the selloff.

Macro Linkages

  • Asian semiconductor rout drove the week's sharpest BTC selloff. KOSPI fell 10.8% Tuesday on SK Hynix losses, spilling into US tech; crypto long liquidations exceeded $510M in 24 hours. South Korea subsequently bounced 17.9% — its largest single-session gain on record — but US markets didn't follow, leaving BTC at two-week lows near $62,369.
  • Fed held at 3.50–3.75% in a 9-3 vote — most hawkish dissent bloc since 2016. June PCE came in at 3.7% YoY (first monthly decline since 2020) but remains nearly double the Fed's 2% target. CME FedWatch prices a September hike at ~50% odds.
  • US-Iran war and oil prices added persistent inflation uncertainty. WTI spiked ~7.6% mid-week on escalation; a subsequent pause in strikes allowed a partial relief rally that briefly pushed BTC toward $66K before fading.

Standouts

  • Tether's excess reserves fell $4.1B in Q2 to $4.11B as BTC and gold price declines hit its marked-to-market portfolio; net operating profit was $1.5B but total reported result was negative $4B+ for H1. Signals stablecoin buffer thinner than prior quarters.
  • New York AG filed a $36B lawsuit against Kalshi alleging illegal gambling; CFTC simultaneously filed to block state enforcement, setting up a federal-versus-state jurisdiction showdown with direct implications for US prediction-market infrastructure.
  • Trump Media sold another 2,628 BTC to Crypto.com, bringing 7-month total sales to 7,281 BTC at an average ~$74,855; remaining holdings 4,261 BTC. Steady seller, politically sensitive given CLARITY Act ethics negotiations.
  • Hut 8 signed a second 15-year, 352 MW lease at its Beacon Point campus (Texas), doubling contracted capacity to 704 MW; Benchmark raised price target to $195. Validates power-first AI pivot as pure mining margins compress.
  • BIP459 draft (DahLIAS full BIP340 Schnorr aggregation) posted to Bitcoin-Dev; enables cross-input signature aggregation (CISA) if adopted as a consensus change, potentially reducing multi-input transaction fees materially.