Bitcoin news

The Securities and Exchange Commission called an open meeting for Friday 14 August 2026 at 10:00 a.m. New York time, with a single item on the agenda: proposing a tailored offering regime for certain investment contracts involving crypto assets, named Regulation Crypto. The draft sets out an exemption for small raises, in the region of 5 million dollars, a wider tier up to 75 million dollars with lighter disclosure duties, and an exit from securities law once a project is no longer driven by essential managerial efforts. The commission has only three members, all Republicans, since its last Democratic commissioner left in January 2026.

In the United States, an asset is treated as a security under the Howey test, drawn from a 1946 Supreme Court ruling: a security exists when an investor puts money into a common enterprise expecting profit from the efforts of others. Bitcoin falls outside that definition, having no issuer and no fundraising, and the CFTC treats it as a commodity. Until now the SEC has decided case by case, through enforcement actions and non binding staff guidance. A proposed rule is not a rule in force: it is published, opened to public comment, then rewritten before a second adoption vote.

For a bitcoin holder, nothing changes immediately: holding, taxation and the working of the network do not depend on this text. What is at stake concerns the companies around Bitcoin, custody, payments, mining and software tools, for which a written framework would replace today's uncertainty. A framework adopted by an agency rather than by Congress can still be revoked by a future commission without any act of law.

What to watch: publication of the text, which opens a comment period of 60 to 90 days, then the final adoption vote, which analysts do not expect before 2027. In parallel, the Senate is due to take up the CLARITY Act in September 2026, the bill on crypto market structure, whose progress will shape the real reach of the SEC's work.

United States Senate Majority Leader John Thune confirmed on 6 August 2026, through a spokesperson, that there would be no vote on the Digital Asset Market CLARITY Act before the summer break. Senators return to work on 14 September 2026. Democrats declined the procedural agreement that would have put the bill on the floor schedule, and several Republican senators also voiced their opposition.

The CLARITY Act aims to draw a clear line between the two United States financial regulators: the SEC for assets treated as securities and the CFTC for those treated as digital commodities. The bill passed the House of Representatives in July 2025 and was advanced by the Senate Banking Committee in May 2026 by 15 votes to 9. Since bitcoin is already placed on the digital commodity side, the law mostly concerns the status of other assets and the rules applying to trading platforms.

For someone holding bitcoin, nothing changes immediately: tax rules and platform obligations remain those in force. The delay mainly lengthens the uncertainty for companies in the sector, which are waiting for this framework before committing investment in the United States. The calendar works against the bill, because the closer the vote gets to the November 2026 midterm elections, the harder it becomes to gather the 60 votes out of 100 needed on the floor.

What to watch: the Senate returning on 14 September 2026 and the possible filing of a cloture motion, which would set the start of voting around 15 and 16 September. It will also be worth watching the fate of the ethics provision covering the crypto interests of public officials, one of the sticking points cited.

Asset manager Hashdex announced in early August 2026 that it will wind down the Hashdex Bitcoin ETF, listed as DEFI on NYSE Arca. The last trading day is set for 17 August 2026 and the cash distribution to shareholders is expected around 28 August. As of 30 July 2026 the fund held only about 14.7 million dollars in net assets, roughly 225 bitcoin, against some 47 billion dollars for BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust.

A spot Bitcoin ETF is an exchange-listed fund that actually holds bitcoin in custody and whose share tracks the underlying price, reachable from an ordinary brokerage account. The SEC cleared the first such funds in the United States in January 2024. DEFI is older: launched in 2022 as a futures-based fund, it converted to a spot fund in March 2024, after its competitors. An ETF lives off its management fee, here 0.25 percent a year, and when assets stay too small that fee no longer covers fixed costs.

This is the first liquidation of a United States ETF holding bitcoin directly; futures-based funds had closed before. For holders the exit is imposed: they choose neither the timing nor the price of the sale, they receive dollars rather than bitcoin, and they will have to treat the operation as a disposal for tax purposes. For the market the effect stays marginal, since 225 bitcoin is next to nothing against daily volumes.

What to watch: the final trading day on 17 August 2026, then the cash distribution expected around 28 August. It will also be worth watching whether other small spot funds announce closures in the coming months, and following the weekly flows published for the whole set of United States spot Bitcoin ETFs.

BIP-110, a proposal that would use a soft fork to limit how much arbitrary data a Bitcoin transaction can carry, is entering its decisive phase. Signaling began on 1 December 2025 and the mandatory signaling phase is expected between 7 and 15 August 2026, around block 961,632, with possible activation in September 2026 near block 965,664. So far miner support stands between 0.3 and 0.4 percent, far below the 55 percent threshold needed for an early lock in, and no major mining pool has stepped forward. Node adoption remains in the low single digits, concentrated among users of the Bitcoin Knots client.

A soft fork tightens the rules: nodes that do not upgrade still accept the blocks, which in principle avoids a chain split, provided that a large majority of hash power follows. Signaling exists precisely to measure that support, with miners indicating in the blocks they produce whether they are ready to enforce the new rules. The underlying issue is not new: since Ordinals inscriptions and BRC-20 tokens, part of the transactions on the network store images or text rather than transfer value, which fills blocks but also earns fees for miners.

The debate divides the ecosystem. Supporters see a defence of Bitcoin's monetary purpose, while opponents, including Adam Back of Blockstream and Michael Saylor of Strategy, see a risky intervention in the consensus rules and a precedent that could be reused later. With support this low, activation on the main chain looks very unlikely, which limits the practical risk for holders. The proposed rule is also temporary: it would expire on its own roughly one year after coming into force.

What to watch: the signaling rate during the mandatory window in August, any position taken by the large mining pools, and then the September 2026 milestone near block 965,664. Users running a node should follow the official announcements of their implementation before any upgrade, rather than relying on messages circulating on social media.

In a Form 8-K filed with the SEC, Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) disclosed that it sold 1,638 bitcoin between 27 July and 2 August 2026 at an average price of 63,957 dollars, for roughly 104.7 million dollars. Close to 52.4 million went to dividends on its STRC preferred shares and about 52.3 million to repurchases of those same shares, part of 81.2 million dollars of buybacks announced over the period. After the sale it holds 842,138 bitcoin for a cumulative acquisition cost of 63.5 billion dollars, or roughly 75,400 dollars per coin, meaning the sales took place well below its average cost basis. The company says the move extended its cash runway by 57 days, to about 2.3 years.

Strategy is the listed company holding the largest amount of bitcoin in the world. Its model is to raise money, through debt or by issuing common and preferred shares, in order to buy bitcoin and keep it on the balance sheet. Preferred shares such as STRC pay a regular dividend in dollars, a recurring obligation that does not depend on the bitcoin price. When market conditions make fundraising harder or more expensive, the bitcoin reserve becomes the most readily available source of liquidity.

For the ecosystem, the episode illustrates something often overlooked: a corporate treasury is not by nature a passive, long term holding, it sits alongside financial commitments that can force sales, including at an accounting loss. This says nothing about where the price is heading, but it is a reminder that large listed holders can be sellers as well as buyers. On the scale of the network, 1,638 bitcoin remains a modest volume compared with daily trading activity.

What to watch: Strategy's coming weekly 8-K filings, which detail purchases and sales, the pace of dividends and buybacks on the preferred shares, and the company's dollar cash position. Aggregate tracking of listed corporate treasuries will show whether these disposals stay an isolated case or turn into a trend.

On 31 July 2026, the SEC decided to review the approval it had granted to Nasdaq PHLX for cash settled bitcoin index options, listed under the ticker QBTC. The product received conditional approval in May 2026 but has been stayed since 11 June, after CME Group filed a petition for review. The full Commission will now reconsider the case, and interested parties have until 24 August 2026 to submit written statements. Until a new decision is issued, QBTC cannot launch.

In the United States, market oversight is split between two agencies: the SEC for securities and the CFTC for commodities and their derivatives. Bitcoin has been treated as a commodity by the CFTC for years, and that agency already supervises the bitcoin futures and options traded on CME. CME therefore argues that options tied to the price of bitcoin fall under the exclusive jurisdiction of the CFTC and that the SEC cannot work around this split through exemptions. An option is a contract granting the right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell at a price set in advance; when it is cash settled, it ends with a payment in dollars rather than a delivery of bitcoin.

For bitcoin holders, the case changes nothing about holding coins or moving them on the network. It concerns the financial infrastructure built around bitcoin: the more regulated and competing derivatives exist, the easier hedging becomes and the lower fees tend to be. If CME prevails, Nasdaq would either have to register with the CFTC or redesign its contracts so that they track a security, such as a spot bitcoin ETF. The dispute also brings back a deeper question that Congress has never settled: how supervision should be divided between the SEC and the CFTC.

What to watch: the 24 August 2026 deadline for written statements, then the decision of the Commission, for which no date has been set. Also worth following is the progress of the CLARITY Act in Congress, which aims precisely to allocate roles between the SEC and the CFTC and would make this kind of conflict less frequent.

On 30 July 2026, Strategy, formerly MicroStrategy, published its second quarter results. The company reports holding 843,775 bitcoin as of 26 July 2026, worth about 54.77 billion dollars, which makes it the largest institutional holder in the world. Its stack is up around 11% over the quarter and 25% since the start of the year. The quarter nevertheless closes with a net loss of 8.22 billion dollars, tied to the fair value measurement of those bitcoin, whose price has fallen back below the average cost basis of the portfolio. At the same time the company says it cut its convertible debt by 18%, to 6.7 billion dollars, after repurchasing 1.5 billion dollars of 2029 notes, and raised its dollar reserve to 2.4 billion, up 12%.

Since 2020 Strategy has built a treasury model based on accumulating bitcoin, funded through share issuance and convertible debt. Since the 2025 financial year, the United States accounting standard ASU 2023-08 requires crypto assets to be measured at fair value at each reporting date, rather than at cost less impairment. In practice every price move flows straight through the income statement, which produces very large profits when bitcoin rises and equally spectacular losses when it falls, without a single bitcoin being sold. An accounting loss of this kind therefore reflects neither a cash outflow nor a disposal.

For the market, the interesting part lies less in the reported result than in the strength of the funding. Lower convertible debt and a dollar reserve reduce the pressure in the event of a lasting price decline, since it is debt maturities and liquidity needs that could in theory force a company to sell. On the other side, at-the-market share issuance dilutes existing shareholders. For the Bitcoin ecosystem, the path of this kind of corporate treasury is watched closely, because it accounts for a significant share of the supply locked up over the long term.

Worth watching: the pace of weekly purchases, which the company discloses regularly through 8-K filings with the SEC, along with the maturity schedule of its convertible notes and the level of its dollar reserve. Third quarter 2026 results, expected at the end of October, will show whether bitcoin has moved back above the portfolio's average cost basis, which would reverse the direction of the accounting effect. It will also be worth watching whether other listed companies keep pursuing the same strategy or pause after a bumpy first half of 2026.

In late July 2026 the SEC granted accelerated approval to an amendment of Cboe BZX Exchange rule 14.11(e)(4), the rule governing Commodity-Based Trust Shares, the category that covers United States spot Bitcoin ETFs. The text now lets these funds hold up to 15% of their net asset value in so-called non-eligible assets, for instance over-the-counter options or other digital assets. The calculation uses the gross notional value of derivative instruments, which mechanically limits the use of leverage. The consequence is concrete: funds running covered call strategies, or offering partial downside protection, can be listed under the generic listing standards without a product-by-product regulatory filing. The order is due for publication in the Federal Register on 3 August 2026.

In the United States, listing an exchange-traded fund goes through the rules of the exchange that hosts it. Since generic listing standards were adopted in September 2025, a product that meets the standard can be listed without the SEC reviewing each case separately, which has sharply shortened timelines. Until now these trusts had to stay almost entirely invested in the spot asset. A covered call strategy means selling call options on the asset held in order to collect a regular premium, at the cost of a capped gain in a sharp rally. A partial protection fund, or buffer, uses options to absorb a first slice of losses, again by limiting the potential upside.

For the ecosystem, the change widens the range of wrappers available around bitcoin: alongside the plain spot fund, products paying a periodic income or smoothing volatility could appear. These structures are not equivalent to direct ownership: they add fees, exposure to option counterparties and a different performance profile, generally less favourable during fast rallies. For issuers, the generic route cuts both the cost and the time to launch, which points to more competition ahead. Nothing in this decision changes the nature of bitcoin itself, nor the tax treatment that applies to investors.

Worth watching: official publication in the Federal Register on 3 August 2026 and the detail of the conditions attached, then the prospectus filings from issuers that want to use this 15% sleeve. The first actual launches and their fee levels will matter, as will any comparable move by the other United States exchanges, Nasdaq and NYSE Arca, which have applied similar generic standards since 2025. Finally, investor reception will show whether these yield formats really attract flows, in a spot Bitcoin ETF market marked by sharp swings between inflows and outflows through 2026.

On 31 July 2026, between 01:31 and 01:56 UTC, an attacker emptied around 500 single-signature Bitcoin wallets and took 594 BTC, close to 38 million dollars, in 1,324 transactions spread over three blocks. The Bitcoin engineering and security teams at Block traced the cause to a bug introduced on 1 March 2021 in the firmware of the Coldcard, the hardware wallet built by Canadian manufacturer Coinkite. On Mk3 devices running version 4.0.1 and later, recovery phrase generation did not use the chip's hardware random number generator but predictable data such as its serial number and clock registers. Coinkite confirmed the analysis, said its preliminary work suggests the Mk4, Q and Mk5 models are not affected, and urged anyone who generated a seed on an Mk3 running 4.0.1 or later to check their funds without delay.

A Bitcoin wallet rests on a 12 or 24 word recovery phrase, the BIP39 standard, derived from a random number. Security depends entirely on how unpredictable that draw is: with 128 bits of entropy, guessing the phrase stays out of reach for any computer. If the draw relies on guessable values, the search space collapses, an attacker can rebuild the keys offline and then sweep every affected address at once. That is exactly why hardware wallets ship with a dedicated random number generator. An entropy defect is invisible in daily use: the device keeps working normally for years.

For holders the practical consequence is clear: installing the fixed firmware does not repair a seed that has already been generated, because the secret itself was drawn in a predictable way. The only remedy is to create a new recovery phrase on a device considered sound and move the funds to it, which means transaction fees and, depending on the jurisdiction, tax reporting on those movements. Beyond the direct victims, the episode revives the debate between self custody and regulated products, with several analysts arguing that it shifts counterparty risk towards software risk, which is harder for an average user to see. It is also a reminder that a hardware wallet is not a guarantee in itself, but a chain made of hardware, software and updates.

Worth watching: Coinkite publishing the final list of affected models and versions once its full testing is done, along with the detailed analysis announced by Block, released early because the theft was still under way. On-chain tracking of the address that consolidated around 562 BTC will show whether the funds move towards exchanges. It will also be worth watching whether other manufacturers publish entropy audits of their own generators, and whether spot ETF flows, already volatile this summer, react to the episode in the coming weeks.

On 26 July 2026, at block 959,616, Bitcoin's mining difficulty fell 0.74 percent, the fifteenth adjustment of the year. Since January 2026 it has dropped from about 146.47 to 126.23 trillion, a decline of roughly 14 percent. Over the year the network recorded nine decreases and six increases. Several miners cut their computing power after bitcoin's price fell about 26 percent since the start of the year, and some are redeploying facilities toward artificial intelligence and high-performance computing.

Mining difficulty is a parameter the Bitcoin network adjusts automatically every 2,016 blocks, about every two weeks, to keep an average interval of roughly ten minutes between blocks. When miners switch off machines, difficulty falls at the next reset; when power returns, it rises again. This mechanism keeps the pace at which new bitcoin is issued predictable, regardless of the total power connected.

Lower difficulty eases the load for miners that stay active, since less power is needed to find a block. Shifting some capacity to AI reflects that these data centres can at times be more profitable hosting computing than mining when bitcoin's price falls. For network security what matters is the total power that stays connected, still high in absolute terms.

To watch: the next difficulty adjustment, estimated around 11 August 2026 by some observers, along with bitcoin's price and the contracts linking miners and AI operators. These will show whether the downward trend in difficulty continues.

El Salvador keeps adding bitcoin to its reserve. As of 15 July 2026 the country held about 7,715 BTC, worth close to 489 million dollars, bought at a pace near one bitcoin a day at prices between 61,840 and 64,492 dollars. Under its Extended Fund Facility, the IMF had asked that the reserve stay unchanged and that the state stop buying bitcoin with public funds. The Fund describes the observed increases as a consolidation of existing wallets rather than new purchases, which the Salvadoran government disputes.

In September 2021 El Salvador became the first country to make bitcoin legal tender. In February 2025 a reform removed that legal-tender status to unlock an IMF loan of about 1.4 billion dollars, but the government kept a policy of accumulating bitcoin in a strategic reserve. A strategic reserve is a stock of an asset held by a state over the long term, bought here gradually.

The gap between San Salvador and the IMF shows the tension between a state accumulating bitcoin and commitments made to an international lender. According to Fitch Ratings, the program reviews due in September 2025 and March 2026 were not completed, delaying expected disbursements. For bitcoin holders the episode changes nothing about the asset itself, but it shows the friction a sovereign reserve can create.

To watch: whether the IMF reviews resume, the release of new reserve data, and the target mentioned by adviser Max Keiser of reaching about 20,000 BTC. Any official clarification on the source of the funds and the real pace of purchases will be worth following.

On 21 July 2026, asset manager CoinShares unveiled a fund platform in the UCITS format, the European standard for regulated retail investment funds. Its first product is the CoinShares Bitcoin Mining UCITS ETF, listed on Xetra, the electronic platform of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (Deutsche Börse). This fund does not hold bitcoin directly: it tracks a basket of shares of listed companies specialised in Bitcoin mining. The stated goal is to open access to the European regulated fund ecosystem, estimated at 26.3 trillion euros, to investors such as pension funds and insurers.

The UCITS label (Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities) is a European framework that requires diversification, liquidity and protections for funds sold to the public. Under their mandates, many institutional investors can only buy UCITS compliant products, which explains the appeal of such a wrapper. Mining refers to the activity that secures the Bitcoin network: specialised computers validate transactions and receive new bitcoin in return. A mining ETF therefore gives exposure to the economic health of these companies (electricity cost, bitcoin price, network difficulty) rather than to the price of bitcoin itself.

This launch is part of a broader move to institutionalise Bitcoin exposure in Europe, following the exchange traded products already available. A UCITS compliant product can enter portfolios that were until now closed to crypto, widening the pool of buyers. For the mining ecosystem, listed mainly in the United States, this can represent an additional channel of capital. For a private individual, it is worth remembering that a miners ETF and a bitcoin investment do not follow the same path: mining shares can clearly outperform or underperform bitcoin depending on their margins and debt.

CoinShares says it wants to expand its UCITS platform with other strategies linked to digital assets. It will be worth watching the fund's trading volumes on Xetra in the first weeks, the possible arrival of competing products from other European issuers, and the degree of adoption by institutional investors bound by UCITS mandates. The list of mining companies included and the fund's management fees will also need to be examined to judge its appeal.