🐳 Daily Edition: Quiet Weekend Pushes Crypto Up, CLARITY Act Stalls in the Senate

Bitcoin opened this morning over $65k, a 1.6% jump from Sunday, as a weekend pause in US-Iran hostilities lifted risk assets broadly in a similar move to what we’ve seen most weekends since the conflict began. As the day comes to a close the move already looks to have cooled off, however, and so I’m looking at this recovery as relatively fragile until volume and ETF flows further crystalize. In other words, probably just more weekend shenanigans from the geopolitical powers that be.

As we reported last week, while Brian Armstrong and other individuals deeply involved in trying to push the CLARITY Act through claim it is “on the 1-yard line,” prediction market odds continue to sell off. The most recent win for the crypto crowd came about a week ago as Trump reportedly signed off on an updated ethics clause, which ironically aims to restrict Presidents and other federal officials from issuing tokens…

The Senate now has until the second week of August to get sixty votes before lawmakers leave for recess, or the bill’s window for 2026 is virtually closed. This wouldn’t necessarily imply the death of the bill, but the next realistic opportunity would come after midterms where the political environment could be very different from what we see now.

Right message, wrong messenger(s)?

The Beluga intern has been hard at work gathering all the most important crypto news stories so you have them in one place!

The Majors

• Ethereum, Solana and Avalanche get busier and cheaper even as token prices fall: Bitwise

• U.S. Senate puts off crypto Clarity Act for now as it focuses limited bandwidth elsewhere

Alt Coins and Stocks

• TD Cowen cuts David Bailey’s Nakamoto target 58% after bitcoin outlook reset

• Ondo launches new execution network, calling it ‘evolution’ of Ondo Chain

• Strategy adds $525M to cash reserve, skips Bitcoin buy for fifth week

AI

• Elon Musk: Humans will lose control of AI within a decade

• OpenAI’s GPT-6 will arrive by September, markets predict

Crime

• Thailand’s SEC alleges Bitkub concealed cyberattack that led to $50 million hack

Interesting Reads

• IBM portfolio acquisition makes Circle the largest US blockchain patent holder

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