Good morning everybody.
It’s Tuesday, August 18th, 2026, and Bitcoin is basically a stablecoin.
We’re sitting around $64,000. It’s up a little this morning, but at this point, text me when we’re at $100,000. That’s when I’m going to care.
There is some macro pressure hanging over the market. Crude oil moved back toward $94, while the U.S. 30-year Treasury yield reached approximately 5.32%, its highest level since 2007.
There’s also a lot of leverage sitting underneath Bitcoin. CoinDesk identified approximately $57,000 as an important liquidation zone where a significant number of leveraged bullish positions could begin getting forced out if Bitcoin falls hard enough.
That doesn’t mean Bitcoin is going to $57,000.
It means things could get ugly quickly if it does.
XRP Falls Below $1
XRP fell below $1 for the first time since November 2024, even as Ripple continues announcing institutional partnerships.
Ripple recently announced another banking partnership in South Korea, but apparently the market doesn’t care right now.
That’s bear markets.
Companies can announce partnerships, build infrastructure, expand internationally, and still watch their tokens go down.
XRP is sitting around $0.996 this morning.
Citi Is Preparing Bitcoin Custody
Citi expects to launch digital-asset custody later this year, beginning with Bitcoin through its new Custody Plus platform.
Citi had already disclosed plans to offer native crypto custody, but the important part is where it’s putting the product.
Crypto custody is being integrated into a broader institutional custody platform alongside traditional financial assets.
That’s significant.
Citi isn’t a crypto startup trying to convince Wall Street that Bitcoin is legitimate.
Citi is Wall Street.
One of the world’s largest financial institutions is effectively saying Bitcoin custody belongs inside the same institutional product stack as traditional assets.
We’ve spent years talking about institutional adoption.
This is what institutional adoption actually looks like.
Kraken Expands Stock Trading Across Europe
Kraken is expanding U.S. stock trading to eligible customers throughout the European Economic Area.
The company had already quietly launched the service in Germany, France, and the Netherlands and is now expanding it more broadly.
This is the convergence we’ve been watching.
Crypto exchanges are becoming stock brokers.
Stock brokers are becoming crypto exchanges.
Traditional assets are becoming tokenized.
Eventually, the distinction between a “crypto platform” and an “investment platform” probably becomes meaningless.
You open one app.
You buy Bitcoin.
You buy stocks.
You buy tokenized assets.
Maybe you trade prediction markets.
Everything sits inside the same financial ecosystem.
Visa Is Looking for a New Stablecoin Partner
Visa is reportedly searching for new stablecoin settlement and over-the-counter partners after BVNK was acquired by Mastercard.
The company wants a partner with crypto exchange licenses in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, and Singapore.
That partner would support multiple stablecoins and help handle settlement for the OpenUSD stablecoin project.
Again, look at who’s involved.
Visa.
Mastercard.
Stripe.
Major banks.
Stablecoins aren’t some weird side experiment anymore.
The traditional payment industry is building around them.
South Korean Exchanges Get Hit by the Bear Market
Upbit and Bithumb both reported significant declines in first-half revenue and profit as South Korean crypto trading activity contracted.
Both companies are still preparing for potential IPOs and restructuring their businesses.
And this is normal.
If you’ve been through a few Bitcoin cycles, you’ve seen this before.
Trading volume falls.
Exchange revenue falls.
Mining companies struggle.
Crypto stocks get crushed.
Everybody starts writing headlines about how terrible everything is.
Then the cycle eventually changes.
I’m not saying every company survives.
They won’t.
I’m saying weak exchange earnings during a crypto bear market aren’t exactly shocking.
Zcash Mining Gets a $33 Million Bet
Cypherpunk Technologies launched a Zcash mining operation through a roughly $33 million deal involving the Winklevoss twins.
Zcash has recently benefited from renewed interest around privacy and quantum-readiness narratives.
Privacy is becoming increasingly important.
We have basically none of it anymore.
I was recently thinking about rustproofing my Lexus GX.
Didn’t search for it.
Didn’t type it into Google.
Didn’t look it up on my phone.
And suddenly I’m getting Facebook ads for rustproofing.
Apparently AI can read my thoughts now.
Great.
Maybe that’s not literally what’s happening, but everybody understands the feeling. The amount of information being collected about us is enormous.
Privacy technology isn’t becoming less relevant.
It’s becoming more relevant.
Treasury Starts Implementing the GENIUS Act
The U.S. Treasury Department proposed its first rules for implementing the GENIUS Act, the stablecoin legislation passed last year.
The proposal begins defining who qualifies as a stablecoin issuer and which businesses must comply with the law’s licensing and regulatory requirements.
The proposal opens a 60-day public comment period, with the GENIUS Act scheduled to take effect on January 18, 2027.
This is where legislation becomes actual regulation.
Passing a law is one thing.
Writing the definitions, licensing requirements, compliance rules, and enforcement standards that companies have to follow is where the real details get decided.
Crypto Advocates Want the SEC to Kill Old Market Rules
The Blockchain Association submitted a letter supporting the SEC’s proposal to eliminate portions of Regulation NMS, specifically Rules 611 and 610E.
The argument is that these rules were designed for the equity markets of 2005 and could interfere with the development of tokenized securities and modern market infrastructure.
Imagine trying to build 2026 financial infrastructure around rules written for markets in 2005.
Tokenized securities could eventually trade 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Settlement could happen on-chain.
Liquidity could operate differently.
Market structure could operate differently.
If regulators want tokenization to develop in the United States, eventually the rules have to reflect the technology that actually exists.
BitMart Looks Like It’s Out of Money
BitMart’s official Chinese-language X account publicly demanded that founder Sheldon Xia explain the status of customer funds and provide a repayment plan by Wednesday.
The post claimed some users remain unable to withdraw funds and some employees haven’t received final salaries or compensation.
BitMart previously announced plans to end trading on August 26 and cease operations entirely on January 31.
They’re out of money.
That’s what it looks like.
I’ve seen versions of this outside crypto in restaurants, hotels, and other businesses.
The financials go bad.
Ownership knows the business is failing.
Money gets pulled out.
Then everybody hopes future revenue will somehow cover yesterday’s obligations.
Maybe there’s another explanation here.
But when customers can’t withdraw and employees aren’t getting paid, that’s generally not a great sign.
Can Regulation Actually Make DeFi More Decentralized?
The founder of Curv argued that pressure from the Financial Action Task Force could ultimately make DeFi safer and more decentralized.
The optimistic argument is that regulatory scrutiny forces protocols away from opaque control points and toward more transparent architecture.
Maybe.
The pessimistic version is that compliance requirements gradually transform DeFi into traditional banking that happens to operate on-chain.
That’s probably the more interesting question.
Does regulation force genuine decentralization?
Or does it eliminate genuine decentralization?
We’ll find out.
Bitcoin Beats the S&P 500 for a Day
Bitcoin actually outperformed Wall Street on Monday.
Bitcoin gained approximately 2.6%, while the S&P 500 fell around 0.5%.
So if you’re a one-day investor, congratulations.
You won.
More interestingly, more than $2 billion has traded during weekends since the CME introduced 24/7 crypto access on May 29.
Weekend Bitcoin returns over the past three months have reportedly been slightly positive in aggregate, while weekday returns have been slightly negative.
That’s worth watching because one of crypto’s defining characteristics has always been that the market never closes.
Traditional finance is increasingly adapting to that reality rather than forcing crypto into normal banking hours.
Crypto Prices
Bitcoin: $64,124, up approximately 1%
Ethereum: $1,896, roughly even
Tether: #3
BNB: $600, down approximately 0.4%
USDC: #5
XRP: $0.996
Solana: $76.16, up approximately 1%
TRON: $0.332, up approximately 0.2%
Hyperliquid: $59.30, up approximately 0.2%
Dogecoin: $0.069, down approximately 0.35%
Total Crypto Market Cap: $2.19 trillion
Fear & Greed Index: 41, Neutral
My Take
Bitcoin itself isn’t doing much.
The financial system around Bitcoin is.
Citi is preparing institutional Bitcoin custody.
Kraken is expanding traditional stock trading across Europe.
Visa is looking for stablecoin settlement partners.
Treasury is beginning to implement the GENIUS Act.
And regulators are reconsidering market rules written more than twenty years ago because tokenized assets simply don’t operate like traditional securities markets.
That’s the story I keep coming back to during this bear market.
Prices are boring.
Infrastructure isn’t.
The companies building during these periods are trying to position themselves for what finance looks like when crypto, stocks, stablecoins, and tokenized assets aren’t separate markets anymore.
Bitcoin can keep pretending it’s a stablecoin.
Text me when we’re at $100K.
Happy HODLing, Everyone.