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Editorial reads on market structure, regulation and industry shifts around Bitcoin.

Markets 2026-10-26

Crypto's next billion users may not be human

  • The 2026 shutdown count is real but method-dependent: one list found 82 projects, while DeFiLlama recorded 100 wind-down announcements by August.
  • Agentic payment systems such as x402 show a plausible route to adoption in which software, not people, discovers and pays for on-chain services.

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Markets 2026-10-13

Self-custody is not a product: the CryptoBilis lesson

  • Bitquery now counts $102 million from 324 wallets on six chains. Ledger confirmed an unauthorised implant in one device, not a common cause for every victim.
  • Self-custody moves trust into hardware, entropy, backups and verification. It may not suit most users, yet still offers a vital exit from custodians.

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Markets 2026-09-03

The Bessent bounce: the Treasury decision that relit Bitcoin

  • The Treasury's August 19 move to at least double long-bond buybacks triggered a record $2.7 billion short liquidation and Bitcoin's break above $70,000.
  • ETF flows made it stick: $2.62 billion into Bitcoin and Ethereum funds in a week, most since October 2025. Next test: the Senate's September 15 CLARITY vote.

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Markets 2026-08-09

The digital euro's real rival

  • MEPs backed digital-euro negotiations 416 to 169 on 9 July; a deal is targeted for end-2026, a pilot in 2027 and issuance no earlier than 2029.
  • The Big Whale reports Christine Lagarde intervened to block Binance's Greek MiCA licence: an account no institution involved has publicly confirmed.

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Markets 2026-08-06

What a Bitcoin node actually does

  • A node is a computer running Bitcoin software that verifies every block and transaction itself, and rejects anything that breaks the rules: for no reward.
  • That independent checking is why nodes decide: rules change only if enough operators choose to run them, and no one can be forced to.

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Markets 2026-08-06

Two continents, two speeds

  • On 7 July the European Parliament backed, 390 to 86, a report warning that dollar stablecoins could deepen Europe's dependence on non-European money.
  • In Washington the CLARITY Act stayed stuck in the Senate before the 7 August recess, snagged on an ethics clause over presidential conflicts of interest.

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Markets 2026-08-06

Insurance without an insurer

  • An LA ice-cream shop says $20-a-day Kalshi weather contracts have returned up to $1,500 a month against $3,500 rent: an improvised policy with no insurer.
  • ICE now distributes Polymarket's probabilities to institutional capital markets; CME's event contracts passed 100 million trades in eight weeks.

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Markets 2026-08-06

July: a rebound, and a rotation toward Ethereum

  • Bitcoin rose about 7% in July, its first monthly gain since April, opening near $58,000 and settling around $64,000.
  • Ether climbed roughly 18% and drew $365 million into US spot ETFs, their best month of 2026, versus a tentative $172 million for Bitcoin.

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Markets 2026-08-06

Wall Street builds the rails

  • BitMine, a NYSE-listed firm, disclosed holding about 5.77 million ETH (roughly 4.8% of supply) and stakes most of it for a projected $247 million a year.
  • Robinhood launched its own Ethereum layer-2, turning a 25-million-user broker into an infrastructure operator; each transaction consumes ETH.

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Markets 2026-08-03

How a random-number bug drained Coldcard wallets

  • Galaxy Research estimates about 1,367 BTC drained from roughly 4,585 addresses; a 2021 firmware bug made affected Coldcards build seeds from guessable inputs.
  • Bitcoin itself was not broken. A patch is not enough: a weak seed stays weak, so affected users must generate a new seed and move funds.

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Markets 2026-08-02

Four questions about Bitcoin

  • The halving still shapes Bitcoin, but its supply shock shrinks each cycle, and four cycles are a pattern, not a law: treating it as a clock is the real trap.
  • A lost seed phrase locks coins away for good; a block takes ten minutes by design; and "zero" would mean abandoning the most secure network Bitcoin has yet had.

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Markets 2026-08-02

Is compute becoming an asset class?

  • Some investors now frame AI compute as an emerging asset class: own the energy and GPUs, sell inference, rather than hold it through mega-cap stocks.
  • The thesis rests on scaling inference demand, but valuations, overcapacity and the illiquidity of private compute bets are real, unresolved risks.

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Markets 2026-08-01

The unwind of Situational Awareness

  • Leopold Aschenbrenner's AI hedge fund Situational Awareness was reportedly forced to sell its leveraged public book to Citadel after a sharp AI-stock selloff.
  • Reports put assets falling from about $45B to roughly $10B in days; the figures vary by outlet and the fund has not confirmed them.

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Markets 2026-07-30

Microsoft's record year, read past the headline

  • Fourth-quarter revenue was $90.0 billion, up 18%; the fiscal year closed at a record $331.8 billion with annual profit up 31%.
  • A $3.2 billion Anthropic gain and $10.2 billion returned to shareholders sit in the fine print; no new dividend move: September is the usual calendar.

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