Bitcoin Magazine

Crypto’s US Workforce Is Tiny, But Industry Punches Above Its Weight: Report

The crypto industry may be relatively small in terms of employers — but the economic contribution is big. 

That’s according to a new report published by the National Cryptocurrency Association and the Pragmatic Policy Group, which reveals that while only 34,000 people are employed by crypto companies, the industry will contribute $55 billion in 2026 to the U.S. economy. 

The report, “Crypto at Work”, which claims to be the first to comprehensively analyze the crypto industry’s footprint in the U.S. labor market, said that jobs in the space also average $133,000 a year — more than double the $64,000 national median wage, and ahead of average pay in tech of and manufacturing.

“Crypto creates many jobs outside the tech industry and directly supports more jobs than key manufacturing industries,” the report said. 

Using a standard input-output economic model, PPG calculated that every direct crypto job supports roughly six additional jobs elsewhere in the economy — at suppliers, and at businesses where crypto workers spend their paychecks. 

Stacking those indirect and induced jobs on top of the direct total produces a figure of 232,000 jobs in total that the industry supports. 

By raw headcount, though, crypto remains a small employer. The report itself benchmarks its 34,000 direct jobs against coffee and tea manufacturing (28,400 jobs) and tobacco manufacturing (10,600 jobs) — hardly the scale of a major American industry.

The industry’s footprint is also geographically lopsided: California, New York, and Texas account for 60% of all crypto jobs, with 57,600, 53,800, and 26,500 respectively. 

Heartland states—Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, and the Dakotas among them — together support just over 17,000 jobs. The report singles out Colorado and North Dakota as rising hubs, pointing to Colorado’s crypto-friendly tax policy and firms like Riot Platforms and Crusoe Energy, and North Dakota’s flare-gas mining operations and a pilot stablecoin from the state-owned Bank of North Dakota.

PPG describes the study as the first comprehensive, economy-wide look at crypto’s labor market impact, built on 2024 Bureau of Economic Analysis and Bureau of Labor Statistics data. 

The firm also flagged a limitation in its own approach: because “a dedicated crypto workforce profile does not yet exist,” it modeled crypto’s financial activities using the occupational mix of broader technology industries rather than traditional finance.

NCA, which funded the research, said it hopes the findings give policymakers “an evidence-based understanding of the sector’s economic contribution.” The nonprofit launched in 2025 to promote what it describes as safe, informed cryptocurrency adoption in the U.S.

This post Crypto’s US Workforce Is Tiny, But Industry Punches Above Its Weight: Report first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Benchmark Raises Hut 8 Price Target After Bitcoin Miner Signs $9.8 Billion AI Data Center Deal

Investment bank Benchmark has raised its price target on Bitcoin miner Hut 8 following news that the company had signed a second 15-year lease ​worth $9.8 billion for its AI data center.

Equity research analyst Mark Palmer reiterated his “buy” rating on the Toronto- and Nasdaq-listed miner in a note Wednesday, raising its price target to $195, up from $165 — an 80% upside from Hut 8’s current share price of nearly $110 a pop. 

Palmer argued that the deal validates Hut 8’s “power-first” approach to building out AI infrastructure. 

Hut 8 announced Monday that it had signed a second 15-year lease for 352 megawatts of IT capacity at its Beacon Point campus in Nueces County, Texas — doubling the site’s tenant to 704 MW of contracted capacity and fully commercializing the campus against its 1,000 MW of utility capacity. Hut 8 shares climbed over 10% on the news, closing near $101 after peaking above $106.

Palmer estimates the new Beacon Point lease alone could contribute roughly $655 million a year in net operating income once stabilized, pushing the campus’s total contract value as high as $50.2 billion if renewal options are exercised.

Hut 8 is among a growing list of publicly traded Bitcoin miners pivoting toward AI and high-performance computing as mining margins get squeezed by a falling Bitcoin price and rising difficulty. 

The company struck a Google-backed deal in December with Anthropic and Fluidstack to build out as much as 2.3 gigawatts of AI data center capacity in the U.S.

Hut 8’s mining ventures

Rivals including Terawulf, IREN, and Cipher Mining have signed similar multi-year HPC contracts with Google and Microsoft, while Bitfarms said last year it would wind down its mining operations entirely to focus on high-performance computing. 

Hut 8, by contrast, has kept its mining business running through its majority stake in American Bitcoin, the mining venture backed by Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr.

Hut 8 is scheduled to report second-quarter earnings on August 4.

This post Benchmark Raises Hut 8 Price Target After Bitcoin Miner Signs $9.8 Billion AI Data Center Deal first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Winklevoss Twins Donated $10 Million From Bitcoin Sale to Trump Super PAC

Crypto entrepreneurs Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss donated over $10 million after liquidating Bitcoin to American super PAC MAGA Inc., which supports President Donald Trump. 

A Tuesday filing shows each twin — the founders of the public crypto exchange, Gemini — donated over $5 million each. 

The donation comes about one month after the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission asked a judge to vacate the agency’s $5 million penalty against Gemini.

The twins back in 2024 announced that they had donated 30.94 Bitcoin, valued at over $2 million at the time, to President Trump’s campaign, claiming it would “put an end to the Biden Administration’s war on crypto.” 

During the Biden Administration, regulators cracked down hard on crypto exchanges — including Gemini — but since President Trump took office, a number of lawsuits have been scrapped. 

MAGA Inc. has raised over $400 million in fresh cash ahead of November’s midterm elections. 

The Winklevoss twins are Bitcoin OGs

The Winklevoss Twins — who claimed they played a part in the creation of Facebook — founded crypto exchange Gemini in 2014 after being early Bitcoin backers.

Crypto industry observers have long speculated that the twins are two of the biggest Bitcoin holders in the space. 

The twins have long praised President Trump’s pro-Bitcoin and pro-business stance, claiming it’s crucial for the future of the crypto industry in the country. 

Tyler in particular emphasized the need for a political shift to prevent further harm to the industry and to restore an environment conducive to innovation and economic growth.

“President Donald J. Trump is the pro-Bitcoin, pro-crypto, and pro-business choice,” he said back in 2024. “This is not even remotely open for debate. Anyone who tells you otherwise is severely misinformed, delusional, or not telling the truth.”

Back in May, Gemini shares jumped over 20% in after-hours trading after the Winklevoss twins announced a $100 million Bitcoin-funded investment in the company alongside Q1 earnings showing 42% year-over-year revenue growth. 

The quarter’s results included a narrowed net loss of $109 million and a sharp rise in services and credit card revenue, though trading volumes had fallen from a year earlier following Bitcoin’s crash from its October peak. 

The rally followed months of turmoil for Gemini, including layoffs, executive departures, shareholder lawsuits, and a stock price that had dropped more than 89% from its IPO high, partly offset by a CFTC derivatives license granted in April.

This post Winklevoss Twins Donated $10 Million From Bitcoin Sale to Trump Super PAC first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin ETFs Take in Nearly $1B in New Money — But What Will the Price Do?

American investors have thrown fresh cash at Bitcoin exchange-traded funds over the past six days, helping the price of the top cryptocurrency to rise again. 

Data from Farside Investors shows that close to $1 billion has been pumped into the funds since Tuesday last week. 

The price of Bitcoin was recently trading at nearly $65,860, down slightly over the past 24 hours but up 1% over a seven-day period. The leading cryptocurrency touched a weekly high yesterday of $66,891. 

Funds managed by BlackRock, Morgan Stanley, and Grayscale have taken in over $930 million in the six-day streak after weeks of lacklustre flows and sloppy price action. 

Bitcoin is currently nearly 50% below its October record of $126,080 after a massive liquidation event, war in the Middle Eastern and inflation all weighed the cryptocurrency down. 

Bitcoin upside potential?

Analysts remain wary of digital assets’ future price path as markets reckon with a re-escalation of the Trump administration’s war with Iran and inflation. 

European asset management firm CoinShares last week said that while investors are back at putting fresh cash in Bitcoin via the exchange-traded products, other factors may hold digital asset markets from going higher. 

“We have said for some time that Bitcoin has probably reached, or is close to, its floor,” James Butterfill, head of research at CoinShares, wrote. “But we see no significant upside potential from here.”

Current macroeconomic headwinds, such as the US bombing Iran and rising oil prices, could see inflation go up again. The price of Bitcoin has typically done well on news that inflation is coming down because investors expect interest rates to come down.

And another report by NYDIG last week claimed that the asset’s current slump is down to supply mechanics rather than risk sentiment. 

The report revealed that Bitcoin’s year-to-date performance makes it the worst-performing asset — losing out against US treasuries, silver, and currencies like the Swiss Franc. 

It added that if Bitcoin’s price action were to match other drawdowns — like the bear market of 2022 — a “potential cycle low near $38k-$39k” was possible.

This post Bitcoin ETFs Take in Nearly $1B in New Money — But What Will the Price Do? first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin Maxi Jack Dorsey Unveils New Open Source Group Chat App

Tech entrepreneur Jack Dorsey has announced a new group chat platform aimed at reducing teams’ reliance on platforms like Slack, in the Bitcoin maxi’s latest push for decentralization. 

The Block co-founder wrote Tuesday on X that the new app, named Buzz, was “for teams of people and agents of all sizes” and “model-agnostic, decentralized, self-sovereign, and open source.”

Described as “A new native workspace for human and agent teams” on its website, Buzz users can “chat with teammates and specialized agents in one shared space, then move straight into planning, project management, coding, and PRs.”

A statement from parent company Block said that the new app was built on decentralized social networking Nostr protocol.

“The interface will feel familiar to anyone who’s used a modern team communication tool,” Block added. 

“Every company is going to need a place where humans and agents work together,” Bradley Axen, head of AI capabilities at Block, said. 

“The question is whether that place is proprietary or open. We built Buzz because we believe it should be open.”

Decentralize everything 

Dorsey, whose firm Block owns companies Square and Cash App, has long been pushing for decentralized solutions: primarily with Bitcoin. 

The billionaire founder of Twitter left the social media company to focus his efforts on payments and Bitcoin adoption in 2021, saying he wants the cryptocurrency to be the global currency and “everyday money.” 

He has also described Satoshi Nakamoto’s Bitcoin white paper as “poetry.”

Cash App allows users to send and receive and buy and sell Bitcoin and point-of-sale terminals Square accept the orange coin via the Lightning Network. 

Block also last year debuted a Bitcoin mining rig with swappable parts, with the idea that miners could cut costs on repairing and replacing the devices. 

This post Bitcoin Maxi Jack Dorsey Unveils New Open Source Group Chat App first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Coinbase Wants To Be Canada’s ‘Everything Exchange’ — With Crypto, Stocks, and Prediction Markets

Crypto giant Coinbase is making its “everything exchange” push in Canada. 

Eric Richmond, country director and CEO of Coinbase Canada, told BNN Bloomberg in a Tuesday interview that the move would allow Canadians to not only buy crypto but also trade tokenized stocks and put money on prediction markets. 

“Coinbase believes we have a new technology here that can really help with that, and that’s blockchain and the technology that underpins crypto today,” Richmond said in the interview. “How do we create that one place for Canadians to have their entire financial experience in one app that’s underpinned by this technology that makes things frictionless, seamless, and 24/7?”

He added: “I think people are starting to realize the fact that banks close at 4 p.m., or the markets close at 4 p.m., or that wires can take days to settle, or that access for high-net-worth individuals to certain products are gated for just those high-net-worth individuals.”

Coinbase in the U.S. allows Americans to place bets and trade stocks. The company started as a place allowing people to buy and sell Bitcoin but has since offered hundreds of digital coins. 

Richmond added that the company was working with Canadian regulators to make the launch. 

Tokenized stocks are versions of equities that trade on the technology underpinning Bitcoin: the blockchain. Proponents like Coinbase argue that by tokenizing everything, traders will be able to make transactions around the clock, 24-7. 

A number of crypto exchanges are also making the push to branch out from crypto: Kraken, for example, has also started allowing users to trade stocks and has announced plans for a prediction market platform. 

Coinbase’s big moves 

Coinbase has made some bigger moves in recent years, other than just working as a crypto exchange. 

America’s biggest bank, JPMorgan Chase, last year signed a deal with the company to allow customers to directly link their bank accounts to the platform. 

Coinbase also provides custody services — including to Wall Street giants like BlackRock — and has a contract with the US government to hold onto seized crypto.

The company also in April received conditional approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency in the U.S. for a national trust banking charter, essentially paving the way for it to serve as a crypto custodian on a federal basis, managing assets for larger entities.

The company has clashed with banking executives recently over stablecoin rewards: the exchange wants its yield-bearing stablecoin products to continue, which in turn could prove to be a bigger boon in the long-run for the business.

This post Coinbase Wants To Be Canada’s ‘Everything Exchange’ — With Crypto, Stocks, and Prediction Markets first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Hyperscale Data Buys More Bitcoin, Bridging Holdings to Over $72 million

Hyperscale Data, Inc. has announced that it’s upped its Bitcoin holdings to over 1,000 digital coins. 

The New York Stock Exchange-listed company said Tuesday that it had over 1,087.4527 BTC as of Sunday — or $72.4 million based on today’s prices.

The holdings are split across the company’s wholly owned subsidiaries, Sentinum, Inc. and Ault Capital Group, Inc. (ACG). During the week ended July 19, ACG added roughly 51.5 bitcoin through open-market purchases.

The latest disclosure marks a significant acceleration in Hyperscale Data’s accumulation strategy. The AI data center company held just 627.9 BTC in late March 2026 — meaning it has nearly doubled its position, adding about 460 BTC in under four months.

The buildout is part of the company’s goal of establishing a $100 million digital asset treasury and reaching full parity between its Bitcoin holdings and market capitalization. With a market cap of roughly $63 million, that threshold has now been crossed — the company’s bitcoin alone is worth more than the company itself, before counting cash or its operating businesses.

Executive Chairman Milton “Todd” Ault III leaned into that disconnect, stating, “We now hold more than $70 million in Bitcoin.” He argued the market is assigning zero value to the company’s cash, its Michigan data center, and its portfolio of operating businesses, and said Hyperscale will keep executing while highlighting the widening gap between its market capitalization and underlying value.

At the time of writing, GPUS is trading near $0.13 a share.

Hyperscale is following the Bitcoin treasury strategy playbook

Strategy Inc. (MSTR) has become the flagship case study in the evolution of Bitcoin treasury strategies in the corporate world.

Under the leadership of Michael Saylor, Strategy shifted from a traditional software business to buying Bitcoin and allowing investors to get exposure to the asset via its shares which trade on the Nasdaq. 

This model has inspired other corporations like Hyperscale Data to add the leading cryptocurrency to their treasuries — though Hyperscale’s case is unusual in that its holdings now exceed its entire market cap, a situation more commonly seen in deeply discounted treasury plays.

This post Hyperscale Data Buys More Bitcoin, Bridging Holdings to Over $72 million first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin Price Closes in on $67,000, Lifting Strategy and Other Crypto Stocks

Bitcoin’s price jumped Tuesday to its highest in over one month, bringing crypto stocks like Bitcoin treasury’s Strategy with it. 

The Bitcoin price was recently priced at $66,886, up nearly 3% in 24 hours. Over the past seven days, the leading cryptocurrency has risen by close to 6%. 

Its rise comes as stocks also trade higher — despite tensions in the Middle East flaring up again. 

Nasdaq-listed Strategy (MSTR), formerly MicroStrategy, also jumped above $100 per share on Tuesday. 

The price jump comes even as the Bitcoin juggernaut on Monday revealed it did not make its usual crypto buy, instead reporting the sale of a $225 million in MSTR shares, which it used for its dollar reserve. 

Strategy stock plunged with the price of Bitcoin last year, and is currently well below its November 2024 peak of $473.83. 

The software company, which started buying Bitcoin in 2020 as an inflation hedge, holds at 843,775 BTC, a position worth around $56.2 billion at current prices. 

Other Nasdaq-listed crypto stocks, including America’s biggest crypto exchange, Coinbase (COIN) and Bitcoin miner Marathon Digital (MARA), also surged on Tuesday. COIN at the time of writing was up 11% and MARA was trading over 6% higher. 

Middle East flare up 

Bitcoin’s price has taken a hit so far in 2026, and is currently down nearly 24% year-to-date. Since the leading crypto notched a new record of $126,080 in October, it has shed close to 50% of its value. 

The asset first got hit hard in October when the biggest crash in the history of the industry liquidated more than $19 billion in crypto bets. 

Then, crypto markets got hit harder after the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran in February, driving oil prices higher and deepening uncertainty around global inflation. 

Investors are now not expecting the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates anytime soon. More inflation comes less chance of interest rate cuts, which restricts the liquidity that Bitcoin needs to surge.

Iran and the U.S. continue to fight, ending a truce, but Bitcoin seems immune to the latest flare up. 

As of July 20–21, the U.S. carried out its 10th straight night of strikes on Iranian military targets, with Trump vowing retaliation for three American service members killed and the Pentagon reporting nearly 100 U.S. troops injured over two weeks. 

This post Bitcoin Price Closes in on $67,000, Lifting Strategy and Other Crypto Stocks first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Jack Mallers Steps Down as CEO of Bitcoin Treasury Twenty One Capital 

Bitcoin treasury Twenty One Capital has named Raphael Zagury as its chief executive officer, a leadership change that arrives seven months after the firm listed on the New York Stock Exchange. 

Zagury succeeds founder Jack Mallers, who is stepping down to focus on his Bitcoin payments company, Strike. 

Speaking on the transition, Mallers said, “I’m grateful to everyone at XXI and everyone who believed in what we built,” said Jack Mallers. “Serving Bitcoiners has always been the mission, and that doesn’t change. Strike is where I carry it forward.”

Austin, Texas-based Twenty One, which trades under the ticker “XXI” on the NYSE, said it would focus on becoming an institutional-grade operating company that’s judged on cash flow generation and capital allocation discipline, not just its Bitcoin holdings.

It added that it would build and acquire high-quality operating businesses that “leverage Twenty One’s balance sheet while maintaining disciplined capital allocation at the parent company and create a long-term ownership model inspired by Berkshire Hathaway.”

“My job is to build the operating company around [Twenty One], with the discipline, governance, and executional rigor of an institution,” Zagury said in a statement.  “I believe our business will perform best when we also focus on the cash flow we generate and the rigor with which we allocate capital, not only by the Bitcoin we hold.”

Mallers leaves XXI

The firm, the product of a joint effort by Tether, Bitfinex, Cantor Fitzgerald, and SoftBank, is the second biggest public Bitcoin treasury, according to Bitcointreasuries.net, with a total of 43,514 coins — or $2.8 billion in Bitcoin at today’s prices. 

It debuted last year through a SPAC merger with Cantor Equity Partners, a blank check company affiliated with financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald.

“XXI was built by Bitcoiners, for Bitcoiners. During my role as CEO, we defined a vision for a Bitcoin-native financial enterprise. As I focus my efforts fully at Strike, I look forward to watching the next phase of growth at XXI,” Mallers said.

The companies behind it are a mix of traditional finance giants and crypto companies: Tether is the biggest issuer of stablecoins and Bitfinex is a crypto exchange. SoftBank is a Japanese multinational investment holding company and Cantor Fitzgerald is a Wall Street firm previously headed up by U.S. President Donald Trump ally and Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick. 

Zagury founded and leads the team behind Elektron Energy, a large-scale Bitcoin mining and infrastructure business. 

Before that, he held roles as a managing director at Deutsche Bank and Merrill Lynch, and as a vice president at Goldman Sachs. He also co-founded OpenCo, at one point among Brazil’s largest fintech lenders. 

The change at the top comes with a shift in deal strategy. In April, Twenty One had floated a plan to consolidate the firm, Strike, and Elektron Energy into a single Bitcoin-native platform spanning financial services, mining infrastructure, capital markets, and treasury. According to Bloomberg reporting, that deal has been scrapped. Twenty One confirmed that Strike will now remain a standalone business and is out of the running for a merger.

This post Jack Mallers Steps Down as CEO of Bitcoin Treasury Twenty One Capital  first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo and Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin Miner Hut 8 Shares Jump on $9.8 Billion AI Data Center Deal

Bitcoin miner Hut 8’s shares rose Monday after the Toronto Stock Exchange- and Nasdaq-listed firm said it had signed a second 15-year lease ​worth $9.8 billion for its AI data center. 

Hut 8 shares peaked as high as $106 a pop before dropping to around $101. They closed Monday up over 10%. 

The deal will see the Toronto-based firm’s Beacon Point campus in Texas data center cover 352 ​megawatts of IT capacity. The tenant using the data center’s will have its capacity doubled to 704 MW.

Hut 8 added that the campus has a base-term contract value of $19.6 billion over 15 years, rising to as much as $50.2 billion if renewal options are exercised.

Asher Genoot, CEO of Hut 8, said: “The real test of our power-first approach is what our partners are willing to commit against it. Our tenant at Beacon Point chose to double its footprint at the site, the strongest validation an asset can receive.”

Hut 8 last year signed a deal with American Data Centers Inc., a company backed by President Donald Trump’s sons Eric and Donald Jr., to contribute its Bitcoin mining equipment and help debut their American Bitcoin mining firm. 

AI pivot

Hut 8 is one of a number of top publicly listed miners that have started directing resources to providing the infrastructure for high-powered computing.

The company in December secured a Google-backed partnership with Anthropic and Fluidstack to build up to 2.3 gigawatts of AI data center capacity in the U.S.

JUST IN: #Bitcoin mining company Hut 8 just announced it partnered with Google for financial backing on a 15-year lease.

Bullish pic.twitter.com/NQN9JmW0ob

— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) December 17, 2025

A number of Bitcoin miners have already gone all-in on the industry as minting the biggest digital coin by market cap becomes harder and demand for AI compute surges. 

As the price Bitcoin has dipped, it has become harder for Bitcoin miners to make ends meet. 

Nasdaq-listed Bitfarms last year announced that it would wind down mining operations to focus on high-performance computing.

Instead of dropping mining operations completely, a number of Bitcoin miners have instead marketed themselves as “compute” or “digital infrastructure” companies while switching between minting digital coins and providing compute for AI — depending on which is more profitable.

Top miners Terawulf, IREN, and Cipher Mining all last year signed multi-year HPC contracts with Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Microsoft.

Both the crypto mining and HPC industries require huge amounts of energy and data centers — but the move isn’t always easy: AI data centres require more expertise than Bitcoin mining.

This post Bitcoin Miner Hut 8 Shares Jump on $9.8 Billion AI Data Center Deal first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Metaplanet’s Bitcoin Japan Announces Plan to Scoop Up Coins Despite Market Downturn 

Bitcoin Japan, a subsidiary of Asia’s answer to Strategy, Metaplanet, has announced it entered into a financing agreement to start buying the leading cryptocurrency for its treasury. 

The Tokyo-based, publicly-listed company said Thursday that it had approved a convertible bond deal with EVO Fund to raise 9.66 billion yen ($59.5 million). The deal will see the company spend over 662 million yen — or over $4 million — on its first Bitcoin transaction. 

Bitcoin Japan works on Bitcoin-related media, data platforms and events to promote the understanding of the leading cryptocurrency in Japan and “contribute to the development of its ecosystem globally,” according to its website. 

Its parent company, Metaplanet, is a publicly-traded company following in the footsteps of Nasdaq-listed Strategy — formerly MicroStrategy — by buying and holding Bitcoin on its balance sheet. It first started buying the asset in 2024. 

Metaplanet is one of the biggest Bitcoin treasuries in the world, with 43,000 digital coins worth over $2.8 billion in its coffers. Its stock is currently down over 50% year-to-date. 

JUST IN: Japan Public company Bitcoin Japan Corporation has raised $60 million through convertible bonds, allocating $4.08 million to make its first buy for their BTC treasury

BULLISH pic.twitter.com/gn7hihxJ68

— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) July 17, 2026

Treasury woes 

Bitcoin Japan’s announcement comes as treasury companies see their stock slide. Last year, the business model of buying and holding Bitcoin and other digital assets with spare cash suffered with a plunge in crypto prices. 

Strategy, the biggest and oldest Bitcoin treasury, has seen its Nasdaq-listed stock nosedive by nearly 80% over the past year. 

Little known publicly traded companies in 2025 rushed to announce they were buying digital assets in a hope to boost their stock prices. The strategy worked but since the market downturn, a number of firms in the space have had to sell a portion of their holdings as the price of Bitcoin has slumped. 

But companies are still accumulating during the downturn — and firms like Bitcoin Japan are seeing the current market price of the leading asset as an opportunity to start a crypto treasury. 

Regulatory push 

While Japan has long been a hub for crypto enthusiasts — former major Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox was based in Tokyo before a 2014 hack and its subsequent closure — lawmakers are now working on regulating the asset class. 

Japan’s parliament last week passed a law ​amendment to designate ‌cryptocurrency assets as “financial assets,” making the assets subject to ​stricter regulations, eventually paving the way for products like Bitcoin exchange-traded funds to debut in the Asian nation. 

The regulation is likely to come into effect within a year, Reuters reported, citing NHK news. 

This post Metaplanet’s Bitcoin Japan Announces Plan to Scoop Up Coins Despite Market Downturn  first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Russia Moves to Rein In Crypto Fraud With New Legislation

Russia is pushing ahead with regulating the cryptocurrency market, with the State Duma considering a bill on combating fraud in the industry, according to reports. 

The bill will look at “combating the illegal use of cryptocurrencies within our country,” Anatoly Aksakov, chairman of the State Duma Committee on Financial Markets, reportedly said.

Lawmakers will vote on the bill in its second and third readings this week, according to Russia’s Tass news agency, and will also work to provide “an opportunity for those who use cryptocurrencies for international transactions to do so within the legal framework.”

Using crypto has been illegal in Russia as a form of payment since 2022 but lawmakers in the country have been open about using them for international settlements.

President Vladimir Putin has also previously spoken about mining digital assets, and admitted back in 2022 that the country had “certain competitive advantages” in the sector thanks to its surplus of energy and cold climate.  

Last year, the president signed a law allowing cryptocurrency mining in the country, allowing legal entities to mine if they have been approved by the digital ministry. Foreign operations are currently banned from doing business in the country.

Back in 2023, the Russian legislature passed a bill legalizing the use of digital currency as a way to make international payments. The bill likely has helped the country skirt international sanctions: The U.S. and European governments sanctioned Russia when it annexed Crimea in 2014, and Western nations have stepped up penalties since it invaded Ukraine in 2022.

Top Russian banks are planning to launch crypto trading services when new regulations take hold in the country. Lawmakers have said that investors will have to pass a test to start crypto investing and will be limited on the amount they can buy. 

Pro-Bitcoin Putin?

BREAKING: Russian President Putin says "Who can ban #Bitcoin? Nobody." pic.twitter.com/6mJ664BZZ8

— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) December 4, 2024

Russia has long had a complex history with regulating cryptocurrencies but Putin has previously praised Bitcoin. 

While speaking at a forum in Moscow in December 2024, the leader of Russia was talking about the dominance of the dollar and other payment methods when he highlighted that new technologies were emerging that could help people move money. 

“For example, Bitcoin, who can ban it? Nobody,” he said at the time. “And who can prohibit the use of other electronic payment instruments? Nobody, because these are new technologies.” 

This post Russia Moves to Rein In Crypto Fraud With New Legislation first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

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Bitcoin Sentiment Is Turning Bullish — But It’s Too Early to Celebrate: Report

The Bitcoin bottom may be in — but don’t get your hopes up: It might struggle to go up anytime soon, according to one investment firm. 

A Friday report from European asset management firm CoinShares said that investors last week threw fresh cash at Bitcoin — and other crypto — exchange-traded products, indicating a change in sentiment. 

But other factors may hold digital asset markets from going higher, James Butterfill, head of research at CoinShares, wrote. 

“We have said for some time that Bitcoin has probably reached, or is close to, its floor,” the report read. “But we see no significant upside potential from here.”

The report added that current macroeconomic headwinds, such as the US bombing Iran and rising oil prices, could see inflation go up again. 

Bitcoin’s price was up earlier this week, hitting a seven-day high of $65,501 on news that inflation in the US was softer than expected. It has since erased those gains and was recently trading for $64,010. 

The price of Bitcoin has typically done well on news that inflation is coming down because investors expect interest rates to come down. But Butterfill said that “a rate cut does not look probable at this stage.”

Bitcoin’s worst run on record

CoinShares’ data showed that investors pulled a total of $8 billion out of funds giving crypto exposure — “the worst run on record.” 

Last week, though, things reversed when $287 million hit crypto funds, CoinShares said, with the data so far showing that this week looks likely to be another positive streak.

The price of Bitcoin has typically done well when US investors — previously excluded from crypto investing — have bought shares in exchange-traded funds approved in 2024. 

The products — handled by the likes of BlackRock, Fidelity, and Grayscale — allow more traditional investors or Wall Street institutions to buy positions in Bitcoin via shares that trade on stock exchanges. 

Since BTC’s October all-time high of $126,080, crypto markets have faced a battering as those investors have fast cashed out of the funds. Bitcoin has struggled to make gains, especially after the US and Israel started bombing Iran, leading to a surge in the price of oil. 

The leading cryptocurrency is now nearly 50% below its record. 

“The dominant picture is that the current setup is prompting interest in adding positions, but caution prevails while sentiment remains broadly negative,” CoinShares added. 

This post Bitcoin Sentiment Is Turning Bullish — But It’s Too Early to Celebrate: Report first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

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Bitcoin Mining Giant Foundry Asks Miners To Vote on BIP-110 Soft Fork

Foundry Digital, the world’s leading Bitcoin mining pool operator, has said it will allow mining clients how the pool should signal on the BIP-110.

The Rochester, New York-based firm said Friday in an email to miners that they will be able to vote by using their hashrate — literally computing power — to vote either for or against the proposal. 

BIP-110, or the Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 110, is a proposal aimed at temporarily restricting spam on the blockchain. If it goes through, a soft fork — a backward-compatible rule change — would take effect, restricting the amount of non-monetary data on the network.

“As miners, it’s important for you to have a voice and participate in the governance of the network,” Foundry said in its announcement. 

“It’s one of the more actively debated proposals in Bitcoin right now, and miners play a direct role in whether it activates,” the company added. 

Also known as the “reduced data temporary soft fork,” the proposal would cap the amount of arbitrary, non-monetary data that transactions can carry. 

Its rules limit most new outputs to 34 bytes, restore an 83-byte limit on OP_RETURN outputs, and reject data pushes above 256 bytes. 

Those for the proposal say that the soft fork would allow Bitcoin to function as pure peer-to-peer money. 

But opponents, including Strategy founder Michael Saylor and Blockstream co-founder Adam Back, argue it converts a policy dispute into a consensus change that could invalidate fee-paying transactions.

Foundry’s process

Under Foundry’s process, each vote carries weight based on an account’s average 10-day hashrate on the pool between July 6 and July 15. Foundry said it will signal based on the majority of hashrate-weighted votes across the signaling period, which it expects to run through early August at block 961,632. 

The company’s starting position is no. It said that until “Yes” votes cross 51% of voting hashrate, Foundry signals “No” with all of its blocks. A crossing of that threshold switches the pool to “Yes” with all of its blocks.

Foundry controls about a third of network hashrate, a share that makes its position consequential for the outcome. Analysts at BGeometrics identified decisions by Foundry and Antpool as capable of moving daily signaling into a meaningful range. A mandatory signaling window near block 961,632, projected for early August, will force the question before the activation timeline closes.

Accounts that do not respond count as “No” votes. Foundry said owners can change their choice while the window remains open, and that individual votes stay confidential, though aggregate results may be shared.

This post Bitcoin Mining Giant Foundry Asks Miners To Vote on BIP-110 Soft Fork first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo and Micah Zimmerman.

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Crypto.com Secures $400M Investment From Citadel Securities at $20B Valuation

Global market maker Citadel Securities has invested $400 million in crypto exchange Crypto.com, giving the platform a $20 billion valuation, according to a Thursday announcement. 

Crypto.com, which has a number of digital asset products, said the cash would help the Singapore-based company expand its services to assets such as blockchain-based securities and derivatives. 

The cash will help bridge the gap “between digital asset and traditional markets to create a more efficient 24/7 financial ecosystem,” a Thursday announcement read. 

“The size of the opportunity in front of us is staggering, as crypto increasingly becomes the rails for finance,” Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek said in a statement. 

“Having built the right regulatory and tech infrastructure over the last decade, Crypto.com is now perfectly positioned to capture this new wave of growth across all asset classes.”

“The convergence of traditional financial markets and digital asset infrastructure is an exciting evolution with the potential to further improve market efficiency,” added Jim Esposito, President of Citadel Securities.

Thrilled to announce our first institutional funding round with a $400 million strategic investment from Citadel Securities valuing https://t.co/pFc4Pz8PQj at $20 billion. An incredible milestone 10 years in on our journey and the beginning of a new phase of growth. Grateful to…

— Kris (@kris) July 16, 2026

Wall Street’s interest in tokenization

Esposito’s comment comes as Wall Street interest in blockchain technology piques — despite a market slump.  

Back in February, BlackRock, the world’s biggest asset manager, announced that it was working with decentralised exchange Uniswap to bring one of its funds on-chain.

Before that, in January, the New York Stock Exchange said it was building a platform allowing traders to buy and sell tokenised versions of US-listed equities and exchange-traded funds. 

And most recently, the S&P 500 gave crypto platform Trade[XYZ] the green light to debut a new derivative contract on decentralized exchange Hyperliquid, allowing traders to gain leveraged exposure to the top index.

Citadel’s crypto interest 

Miami, Florida-based Citadel, has for some time been interested in digital assets: Back in 2023, the company helped debut EDX Markets, a “first-of-its-kind exchange” giving investors “safer, faster and more efficient cryptocurrency trading.”

The exchange this year applied for a national trust bank charter with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, marking a step toward deeper integration between digital asset firms and the US banking system.

Citadel last year also pumped $200 million into crypto exchange Kraken to help accelerate the company’s strategy of bringing traditional financial products on-chain. 

This post Crypto.com Secures $400M Investment From Citadel Securities at $20B Valuation first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

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T. Rowe Price Debuts New ETF With Bitcoin and Crypto Exposure

Asset manager T. Rowe Price on Thursday debuted its first crypto exchange-traded fund, giving investors exposure to Bitcoin and other digital coins. 

T. Rowe Price, which with $1.89 trillion in assets is one of the largest U.S. asset managers, said that its Active Crypto ETF is the first actively managed multi-token spot ETF on the market. 

The ETF, which trades on the NYSE Arca under the ticker TKNZ, mainly gives investors exposure to Bitcoin and Ethereum, weighed 40.75% and 18.42%, respectively, but includes other assets like Solana, XRP, Hyperliquid, Dogecoin, and BNB. 

T. Rowe Price applied to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for the product last October. 

“Through the launch of the T. Rowe Price Active Crypto ETF, investors can gain access to a thoughtfully curated, professionally managed multi-coin portfolio that helps eliminate the guesswork of building a crypto allocation on their own,” Blue Macellari, who works as head of digital assets at the firm, said in an announcement.  

The announcement added that the product was the “first of the firm’s lineup” for the digital asset space, hinting that more ETFs could soon follow. 

Writing on X Thursday, Bloomberg Intelligence’s senior research analyst, James Seyffart, said: “Launching during a bear market and I know for a fact this product was years in the making. Legacy asset managers continue to build in the crypto space despite the pullback in prices.”

JUST IN: $1.9 trillion T. Rowe Price launched the first actively managed multi-token spot crypto ETP

40.75% of the fund is in Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/lbguyJr6RO

— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) July 16, 2026

Explosion in crypto and Bitcoin ETFs 

In January 2024, the SEC approved Bitcoin ETFs by BlackRock, Fidelity, Grayscale and other asset managers after years of denying applications. 

The funds had the most successful debut in the ETF industry’s history, and now manage billions in dollars in assets. 

Ethereum funds followed the same year and a number of altcoin products are now on the market for U.S. and European investors. 

More traditional investors and Wall Street institutions can now buy crypto via shares that trade on traditional stock exchanges. 

Investors were previously put off by some of the harder aspects of crypto management, such as keeping private keys safe and digital coin storage. 

The Bitcoin ETFs in particular have helped integrate the asset into traditional finance, making it easier to borrow against or use as collateral. 

Under President Trump’s crypto-friendly administration, regulators have become more relaxed towards regulating the digital asset space; many SEC lawsuits and investigations targeting crypto firms have been scrapped since the Republican took office. 

This post T. Rowe Price Debuts New ETF With Bitcoin and Crypto Exposure first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

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Bitcoin VC Veterans Launch $40 Million Holding Company Targeting Small Business Acquisitions

Another day, another Bitcoin treasury. 

But this time, with a twist: Earlier this week, macroeconomist and all-round Bitcoin legend Lyn Alden announced Orange Juice — an investment firm that aims to buy, improve and get businesses on a Bitcoin standard. 

The idea is that Orange Juice will buy small and mid-sized businesses at low prices, improve their operations, and hold them indefinitely rather than reselling them. 

A portion of the businesses’ profits will get converted into Bitcoin, which serves as the company’s treasury asset. 

“Pure-play Bitcoin holding companies exist, but their cash-flowing operations tend to be small or non-existent,” Alden wrote in a blog post. 

She added: “Orange Juice instead will emphasize building a strong and diversified base of cash flows, with a portion of the retained earnings of its businesses accumulating into a Bitcoin treasury.”

Ego Death Capital partners Jeff Booth, Lyn Alden, Nico Lechuga, Andi Pitt founded the company along with Adrian Steckel and Ruben Zweiban, while Mexican billionaire Ricardo Salinas participated as the anchor investor, a Wednesday announcement read. 

Salinas — one of Mexico’s richest men — has long-praised Bitcoin and last month admitted he had increased his allocation in the asset from 10% to 70% of his portfolio. 

It added that the company had already raised $40 million and intends to pursue a public listing in the future.

“Over the coming decades, a significant wave of business successions will take place,” the announcement said. “Unlike traditional private equity, Orange Juice is not constrained by fund cycles or the pressure to resell, allowing it to focus on the long-term health of its businesses.”

JUST IN: Lyn Alden's 'ORANGE JUICE' Raises $40 million to launch a permanent capital holding company backed by a BTC treasury

"It’s a company that acquires, improves, and permanently holds cash-flowing businesses, backed by a bitcoin treasury" – Lyn Alden pic.twitter.com/A8kyVpIVVx

— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) July 15, 2026

Bitcoin treasury craze

The announcement comes at a time when Bitcoin treasuries have taken a hit: the business model — of buying and holding Bitcoin and other digital assets with spare cash — suffered last year with a plunge in crypto prices. 

Strategy, the biggest and oldest Bitcoin treasury, has seen its Nasdaq-listed stock nosedive by nearly 80% over the past year. 

Little known publicly traded companies in 2025 rushed to announce they were buying digital assets in a hope to boost their stock prices. The strategy worked but since the market downturn, a number of firms in the space have had to sell a portion of their holdings. 

There are currently over 360 digital asset treasuries, according to BitcoinTreasuires.net, made up of private and public entities holding a variety of digital assets. 

This post Bitcoin VC Veterans Launch $40 Million Holding Company Targeting Small Business Acquisitions first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

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Bitcoin to $40,000? If History’s Anything to Go By, It’s Possible, Says Report

Bitcoin has underperformed compared to other “risk-on” assets this year — and if history’s anything to go by, its price could dip as low as $38,000 by October. 

That’s according to a new report by NYDIG, which reveals that the asset’s current slump is down to supply mechanics rather than risk sentiment. 

Bitcoin’s price has in the past moved with tech stocks but 2026 has been different: AI-related equities have soared while crypto markets have slumped. Bitcoin was recently priced at $64,809, down nearly 30% year-to-date and close to 50% less than its October all-time high of $126,080. 

“Bitcoin’s 2025–2026 drawdown is bringing the 4-year cycle narrative back into focus, because the timing and structure increasingly resemble the prior reset years of 2014, 2018, and 2022 even though the path has not matched those drawdowns exactly,” the report read. 

NYDIG revealed that Bitcoin’s year-to-date performance makes it the worst-performing asset — losing out against US treasuries, silver, and currencies like the Swiss Franc. 

It added that if Bitcoin’s price action were to match other drawdowns — like the bear market of 2022 — a “potential cycle low near $38k-$39k” was possible. 

The good news: Bitcoin had its least volatile year ever in 2025, and some analysts opining that this year’s drawdown may be shallower than in previous bear markets. 

Is Bitcoin digital gold?

NYDIG added that Bitcoin’s rolling correlation with gold increased during 2026’s second quarter, with both assets experiencing sell-offs. 

Bitcoin has been correlated to the precious metal in the past and Bitcoiners have described the top digital coin as “digital gold.” 

But the asset last year was more correlated with US equities — especially tech stocks. 

NYDIG added that other commodities experienced sell-offs in the second quarter of 2026, with the so-called debasement trade losing momentum. Traders in 2025 spoke of the “debasement trade” as a hot move to hedge against the dollar — and other fiat currencies — losing value. 

Bitwise said in a report last week that while Bitcoin closed Q2 2026 in its deepest and longest downturn since the last bear market, the fundamentals are in place for a quick recovery, with regulators passing crypto-friendly legislation. 

NYDIG added that the passing of the market-structure CLARITY Act “is the most important forward catalyst for the digital asset industry.”

“For Bitcoin, CLARITY’s direct price impact is less significant than for altcoins and crypto equities, but the investment implication remains material because a clearer U.S. market-structure regime would benefit the entire industry,” it noted. 

This post Bitcoin to $40,000? If History’s Anything to Go By, It’s Possible, Says Report first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin Price Jumps Over $65,500 on Soft Inflation Data 

The Bitcoin price jumped over $65,500 on Wednesday after US inflation data showed that producer prices fell in June. 

Data from the Labor Department showed that the Producer Price Index posted its biggest decline in 14 months. The PPI, excluding food and energy, fell 0.3% in June, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers. 

Bitcoin’s price was recently trading at $64,943, a 2% 24-hour jump. 

The Bitcoin price has typically surged when signs inflation is cooling emerge as investors then expect a bigger chance of lower interest rates. Crypto, stocks and other “risk-on” assets have in the past done well in a low-interest rate environment. 

Still, the cooling inflation does not take into account the latest escalation in the US-Iran war: President Trump this week said the US would take control over the Strait of Hormuz. 

On Wednesday, the US leader vowed to intensify the bombing until Tehran stops attacking ships in the Strait of Hormuz and agrees to open the waterway. 

“We’re going to hit [Iran] very hard the night after,” President Trump told Fox News on Tuesday. “And then next week it gets really bad for them because next week comes the power plants.”

“The only way you can negotiate with these people is through strength,” he added. 

Bitcoin’s price has faced increased volatility since the US and Israel attacked Iran on February 28, with the leading cryptocurrency dropping hard on initial reports of war.

Since the start of the year, the leading cryptocurrency has shed nearly 30% of its value, and is now close to 50% below the $126,080 record it notched in October. 

Downwards pressure has been added to the Bitcoin price as US investors fast cashed out of spot exchange-traded funds throughout the month of June as inflation uncertainties and a boom in artificial intelligence-related stocks has led speculators to put their cash elsewhere.

JUST IN: Bitcoin rips to $65,374 pic.twitter.com/j0mRcD6SMY

— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) July 15, 2026

Bitcoin price jumps on cooler inflation numbers

Figures released on Tuesday from June’s Consumer Price Index also showed that inflation appeared to be easing in the US, also leading to a jump in the Bitcoin price. 

Over a seven-day period, Bitcoin’s price has traded from $61,507 to as high as $65,501. 

Traders are now keeping an eye on what new Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh — who’s typically been an inflation hawk in the past — will do while leading the central bank. 

The new Chair told congress this week that the Federal Reserve has “no tolerance for persistently elevated inflation,” and that policy makers at the bank share “a resolute commitment to restoring price stability.”

Kevin Warsh was sworn in as the new central bank chief in May. The former Federal Reserve governor has said he wanted to lower the cost of borrowing but markets initially priced him in as a hawk — someone who would raise interest rates to tackle inflation. 

At the time of writing, the bitcoin price is near $65,000.

This post Bitcoin Price Jumps Over $65,500 on Soft Inflation Data  first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.