Good morning everybody.
Bitcoin is still doing what it’s been doing for weeks.
Going sideways.
Yes, we’re back around $65,000, which sounds exciting after spending time near $62,000, but zoom out and we’re still trapped inside the same range we’ve been talking about for weeks.
The difference today isn’t the price.
It’s who’s buying.
Bitcoin Whales Keep Adding
While retail investors continue debating whether Bitcoin has another leg down, large buyers are quietly accumulating.
This week alone, Bitcoin whales purchased roughly $1.2 billion worth of Bitcoin, while U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs attracted approximately $750 million in inflows.
Some people immediately connected those ETF inflows to the recent Coldcard exploit, suggesting investors were abandoning self-custody for regulated investment products.
Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas urged caution with that conclusion, saying there isn’t enough evidence to directly connect the two.
That’s probably the right approach.
Correlation isn’t causation.
Still, somebody is buying.
Bitcoin Miners Still Face Pressure
CleanSpark shares fell after the company missed Wall Street revenue expectations.
The story isn’t really about one mining company anymore.
It’s about how investors value miners today.
A few years ago, miners were judged almost entirely by how much Bitcoin they produced.
Today, investors want much more than hash rate.
They want AI contracts.
They want high-performance computing revenue.
They want access to cheap electricity.
They want disciplined balance sheets.
Mining Bitcoin alone isn’t enough anymore.
The companies attracting premium valuations are the ones proving their infrastructure can generate revenue beyond mining.
The CLARITY Act Waits Again
Senate Majority Leader John Thune confirmed that the Senate will not vote on the CLARITY Act before the August recess.
That pushes the legislation into September at the earliest.
The bill remains one of the most important pieces of crypto legislation in years because it would define the regulatory responsibilities of the SEC and CFTC.
Several issues remain unresolved, including:
Ethics provisions
DeFi oversight
Enforcement authority
Illicit finance rules
Stablecoin yield
The longer those questions remain unanswered, the longer companies continue operating without clear regulatory boundaries.
Coinbase Loses Another Prediction Market Fight
A Michigan judge denied Coinbase’s request to block state enforcement involving sports event contracts.
The broader legal battle continues.
Platforms argue these products are federally regulated derivatives.
States continue arguing they are gambling products that belong under state regulation.
This is one of those fights that probably won’t be settled by one court decision.
Expect more lawsuits before we get lasting clarity.
The Coldcard Damage Keeps Growing
Unfortunately, the Coldcard story isn’t going away.
New estimates suggest the exploit has now resulted in more than $116 million in stolen Bitcoin, affecting over 5,200 wallets.
What bothers me most isn’t the total dollar amount.
It’s who likely lost the money.
Most of those wallets probably weren’t holding hundreds of Bitcoin.
They were holding fractions of a Bitcoin that people accumulated over years.
Maybe 0.2 Bitcoin.
Maybe half a Bitcoin.
Savings.
A future down payment.
A retirement hedge.
People did what the industry told them to do. They moved their Bitcoin into self-custody.
Now they’re paying for a failure that wasn’t theirs.
BIP-110 Still Has Almost No Support
Bitcoin’s proposed BIP-110 continues moving through discussion despite attracting almost no support from miners.
The proposal would further restrict non-financial data, including inscriptions, from occupying Bitcoin block space.
For now, miners appear largely uninterested.
Without meaningful signaling from the mining community, the proposal has little chance of moving forward.
XRP Feels the CLARITY Delay
Among the major cryptocurrencies, XRP remains one of the assets most closely tied to regulatory developments.
Following another delay to the CLARITY Act, XRP underperformed many of the larger cryptocurrencies as investors pushed expectations for regulatory certainty further into the future.
Whether that changes in September depends largely on Congress.
Crypto Prices
Bitcoin: $65,134
Ethereum: $1,930
BNB: $592
USDC: #5
XRP: $1.03
Solana: $72.13
TRON: $0.327
Hyperliquid: $56.67
Dogecoin: $0.07
Total Crypto Market Cap: $2.22 trillion
Fear & Greed Index: 50 (Neutral)
My Take
The interesting part of today’s market isn’t that Bitcoin reached $65,000.
It’s that large buyers continue accumulating while everyone else debates whether another selloff is coming.
Whales are buying.
ETF money continues flowing in.
Retail investors remain cautious.
Those three things can all be true at the same time.
Maybe Malcolm was right when he called $60,000 the bottom.
Maybe not.
We’re still inside a range, and one good week doesn’t erase months of sideways price action.
But it’s getting harder to ignore the amount of institutional money quietly stepping into the market while most people remain focused on the next correction.