Crypto World
what Claude Mythos 5 changes
The AI model its own maker says can find and exploit software flaws better than almost any human is back online. It arrives in the middle of crypto’s worst year for hacks. Here is what actually changes, and what the panic gets wrong.
Summary
- On July 1, 2026, Anthropic restored global access to Claude Fable 5 after the U.S. lifted export controls, while the less-restricted Mythos 5 returned only to a set of vetted U.S. organizations through a program called Glasswing.
- Anthropic markets Mythos-class models as able to find and exploit software vulnerabilities more effectively than any other model and than all but the most skilled human experts, and says the models surfaced more than 10,000 high-severity flaws in important software.
- The alarm in crypto is that cheap, fast, AI-driven vulnerability discovery turns unaudited protocols and small forks into easy targets, in a year when hacks have already drained more than $840 million.
- The skeptical view, shared by some security experts and by Anthropic’s own review, is that the models mostly accelerate known attack types, social engineering, exposed keys, and misconfigurations, instead of inventing new ones, and that weaker models can do much of the same work.
- The same capability that helps attackers also helps defenders, through faster audits and patching, which is why the near-term risk is real while the long-run balance is contested.
The model built to find software flaws is back, and it landed in the worst possible year for the industry with the most to lose. On July 1, 2026, Anthropic restored access to Claude Fable 5 worldwide after the U.S. Department of Commerce lifted the export controls that had forced the model offline in June, while its more powerful sibling, Mythos 5, returned only to a set of vetted organizations. The timing is what makes it a crypto story. Anthropic describes Mythos-class models as able to find and exploit vulnerabilities better than nearly any human, and crypto is in the middle of a record run of hacks, with billions in assets sitting inside publicly visible code that an AI can read at machine speed.
This piece separates what these models actually change from what the panic gets wrong, and it does so without treating a single headline as the whole picture. The central question is not whether AI makes crypto security riskier; it does. The harder question is where the added risk actually sits, whether it is in smart contracts themselves, bridges, human operations, signing flows, or the speed at which attackers can now move from disclosure to exploit. The answer is less cinematic than the fear, but more useful for anyone holding funds or building protocols.
What came back, and what did not
The distinction between the two models is the first thing to get right, because they are not equally available. Fable 5 is the public, safeguarded member of the Mythos class, released in June 2026 and priced at roughly twice the cost of Anthropic’s prior flagship. It returned to global users on July 1 across Anthropic’s platforms. Mythos 5 is the less-restricted version that carries the full cyber capability, and it did not return to the public.
Anthropic restored Mythos 5 only to a set of vetted U.S. organizations that operate and defend critical infrastructure, through an opt-in program called Glasswing, following government approval in late June. So the model most crypto observers worry about is not the one now sitting behind a consumer subscription. The distinction matters because public access changes the risk surface very differently from vetted critical-infrastructure access. A powerful model in the hands of security teams is not the same thing as a powerful model available to every attacker with a credit card.
The episode that pulled both offline is worth understanding, because it colors the risk debate. In June, researchers at Amazon showed a jailbreak that got Fable 5 to identify software vulnerabilities and write exploit code, and the U.S. government responded with an emergency export-control order that Anthropic complied with by disabling the models entirely, since it could not restrict access by nationality in real time. The controls were lifted at the end of June, and access returned in the first days of July, with Fable 5 global and Mythos 5 limited. Anthropic’s own account of the incident cuts against the loudest fears: its review, conducted with the government, found that the reported technique did not reveal a uniquely Mythos-level capability, and that several weaker models could reproduce the same vulnerabilities.
The company argued the capability had been oversold, and it deployed a new safety classifier it says blocks the specific technique in more than 99% of cases, routing risky cybersecurity prompts to a weaker model in fewer than 5% of sessions. That is the company’s framing, and it matters, but it is not the whole story either. The point for crypto is narrower: even if public access is constrained, the capability exists, it is improving, and weaker models already reproduce parts of it. That means the security problem cannot be solved by focusing on one model alone.
What Mythos-class models can actually do
The capabilities that alarmed the security world are real and documented, not hypothetical. Under its restricted program, Mythos-class models reportedly surfaced more than 10,000 high and critical-severity vulnerabilities in systemically important software, and found critical flaws across more than 1,000 open-source projects, including widely used components such as the Linux kernel and a popular media library. In one cited case, the model generated a working proof-of-concept exploit for a complex issue in under 31 minutes. Cloudflare reported that an earlier Mythos preview chained bugs into working exploits across more than 50 of its code repositories before refusing to produce a live demonstration.
The capability that most changes the math for defenders is speed. Anthropic has warned that the window between a vulnerability being disclosed and being exploited is collapsing, in some cases from days to hours. Its researchers concluded that a single operator with this class of model could turn a month of software patches into working exploits in a single afternoon, for a cost measured in a few thousand dollars. Security practitioners have started describing the shift as moving from an era of N-days, where attackers had weeks or months after a disclosure, to something closer to N-hours.
When a patch ships, it also reveals the flaw it fixes, and a model that can read the patch, understand the bug, and build an exploit in hours compresses the defender’s response window dramatically. None of this is the same as inventing a new class of attack. It is acceleration and scale. The model reads public code, compares versions, summarizes audits, and reasons about weaknesses faster and cheaper than a human team, which lowers the cost and expertise needed to do work that skilled attackers already do.
That distinction, acceleration rather than invention, is the fault line the entire debate runs along. For crypto teams, the practical implication is brutal: slow patching, stale dependencies, and unaudited forks become more dangerous when attackers can automate the boring parts of vulnerability discovery. The frontier model does not need to be magical to change the economics. It only needs to make the existing attack pipeline cheaper and faster.
Why crypto is uniquely exposed
Crypto sits in the blast radius for reasons specific to how it works. Smart contracts are public by design: the code that controls billions of dollars is visible on-chain for anyone, including an AI, to read and analyze. Bridges, the infrastructure that moves assets between blockchains, concentrate the collateral of many chains into a single set of contracts and message-verification systems, which makes them the highest-value targets in the space. An attacker who can scan code at machine speed has an unusually rich, unusually open field in crypto compared with closed corporate systems.
The backdrop is a genuinely bad year. Crypto has lost more than $840 million to hacks in 2026, with some tallies putting the figure past $940 million across more than 120 incidents, and April alone set a record near $600 million. The two largest losses tell the story of where the damage comes from. Kelp DAO lost roughly $292 million when attackers forged a cross-chain message on its bridge, exploiting a setup that let a single compromised node approve fraudulent withdrawals.
Drift Protocol lost about $285 million not to a code bug but to a six-month social engineering operation that ended in compromised administrative keys. Bridges have accounted for the largest share of losses, and North Korean groups have been linked to a large portion of the total. That pattern is the key context for the AI debate, because it shows where crypto actually bleeds. The biggest 2026 losses came less from novel smart-contract bugs than from human error and operational failure: social engineering, exposed keys, flawed signing flows, and misconfigured infrastructure.
Any assessment of what a Mythos-class model changes has to start from that reality, not from the image of an AI writing an exotic new exploit from scratch. The crypto risk surface is not only code. It is bridges, multisigs, admin keys, custody practices, signing devices, deployment scripts, and teams that still operate under startup-style security despite controlling institutional-scale money. AI makes that whole surface easier to search.
The alarm case
The bearish read is straightforward and has serious voices behind it. Simon Dedic, a well-known crypto investor, warned that a public Mythos-class model could sharply lower the cost and expertise needed to find exploitable flaws in smart contracts, and that unaudited protocols would become, in his words, sitting ducks. The argument is about barriers. Finding a subtle vulnerability in a contract used to require rare skill and considerable time.
If a model compresses that to hours and pennies, the population of people capable of attacking a weak protocol expands enormously, and the long tail of small projects, forks, and unaudited contracts becomes far more exposed. The numbers give the argument weight. Analysts have linked part of 2026’s elevated hacking losses to the growing use of advanced AI in identifying vulnerabilities, and the trend line points toward more automated, faster reconnaissance. In this view, even if the very best human attackers gain little, the marginal attacker gains a great deal, and crypto has no shortage of marginal attackers or of weak targets for them to point a capable model at.
The alarm is less about the top of the skill curve and more about how many more people can now operate near it. That is why small DeFi forks, rushed launches, and unaudited protocols are the obvious danger zone. A well-resourced protocol with continuous audits and strong operational controls may use AI defensively. A copy-paste fork with weak key management may simply become easier to attack.
The skeptics’ case
The counterargument is equally serious, and it comes from builders and from Anthropic itself. Michael Egorov, the founder of a major decentralized exchange, argued that smart contracts typically contain only a few thousand lines of code and are already well understood by human auditors and existing AI tools, so a more capable model changes less about direct contract exploits than the panic suggests. In his view, operational security failures and supply-chain attacks are the larger risk, and those are not primarily a smart-contract-analysis problem. That view fits the loss data, where administrative compromises and bridge failures dominate the largest incidents.
Anthropic’s post-incident review reinforces the skeptical case from an unexpected direction. The company found that the jailbreak technique that triggered the export controls did not reveal a uniquely Mythos-level capability, and that weaker models, its own and others, could reproduce the same vulnerability findings. If a capability is broadly available across many models rather than locked inside one frontier system, then restricting or releasing that single system changes less than it appears to. The skeptics do not claim the models are harmless; they claim the marginal danger of any one release is smaller than the headlines imply, because the underlying capability is diffuse and because the hardest part of most real attacks is not finding the flaw.
That is an important distinction for crypto readers. The risk is not “Claude Mythos appears, therefore every DeFi protocol is suddenly doomed.” The risk is that AI-assisted security analysis is becoming normal across many models, countries, and toolchains, which means attackers and defenders alike will have faster vulnerability discovery available. In that world, the question shifts from whether one model should be online to whether crypto teams can patch and harden faster than adversaries can scan and exploit.
The part everyone agrees on
Between the alarm and the skepticism sits a consensus, and it is the most useful part of the debate. Security experts broadly agree that advanced AI will not invent fundamentally new categories of crypto hack, but will dramatically speed up the attacks that already dominate the loss tables: social engineering, exposed keys, and flawed signing flows. A model does not need to hand over a finished exploit to change the economics of an attack. It can read public repositories, compare old and new versions of software, summarize audit reports, and draft convincing messages designed to catch the small operational mistakes humans make.
As one analysis put it, these exploits remain rooted in social engineering and human error; AI did not create that reality, it made it visible and accelerated it to machine speed. That reframing points straight at the 2026 loss data. The Drift and Kelp attacks, the two largest of the year, were an operational compromise and a bridge-verification failure, not clever new contract bugs. A model that accelerates reconnaissance, scans for the weakest key path or the sloppiest signing flow, and helps craft the human-facing part of an attack makes exactly those failure modes cheaper and faster to exploit.
The practical implication is that the defense that matters most is not writing unbreakable contracts, but hardening the human and operational layer where the money actually leaks. That means keys, signing steps, privileged accounts, dependencies, cross-chain message verification, and incident response. It also means treating every public disclosure and every patch as a race. In an N-hour world, yesterday’s slow security process becomes tomorrow’s exploit window.
The defensive flip side
The same capability that worries defenders can also serve them, which is why the long-run balance is genuinely contested. A model that finds vulnerabilities faster than humans is, pointed the other way, an audit tool that finds them before attackers do. Anthropic has argued that AI will eventually favor defenders in cybersecurity, while conceding that the transition will be turbulent, and it restored the restricted Mythos 5 specifically to organizations that defend critical infrastructure through its security program. That is the defensive version of Glasswing: put the best tools in the hands of teams whose job is to patch before adversaries exploit.
One incident has become the reference point for both sides. In early June 2026, a critical vulnerability in a privacy coin’s shielded pool was discovered using Anthropic’s Opus 4.8, a model a generation below the Mythos class. The flaw, if exploited, could have allowed unlimited minting of the token, and it had eluded expert cryptographers for roughly four years. The token dropped more than 35% on the disclosure.
The lesson cuts both ways: a weaker model catching a four-year-old flaw shows how much AI can strengthen defense, and also how much latent, undiscovered risk sits in code that a stronger model could surface, for good or ill. Faster discovery is a defensive gift when a friendly party finds the bug first and a catastrophe when an attacker does. Which side wins any given race depends on who is scanning, how fast teams can patch, and whether defenders adopt the tools as aggressively as attackers will.
What crypto users and teams can actually do
The useful response to all of this is not panic but hardening, and most of it is advice that held before any model returned. For individual users, the recurring guidance from security researchers is concrete: revoke unused token approvals, since every outstanding approval grants a contract permission to move your funds, and tools exist to review and cancel them. Move significant holdings into self-custody and cold storage, so that the keys controlling real money sit somewhere a compromised laptop cannot reach, and treat any unaudited protocol as a higher risk than it looked a year ago. When approving a transaction, use a device with a trusted screen that shows what is actually being signed, because if AI accelerates the scouting phase, the final signing step becomes the moment that matters most.
For teams and protocols, the priorities follow from where the losses come from. Rapid patch management matters more in an N-hour world, because the window between a disclosure and a working exploit is shrinking, so shipping and applying fixes quickly is now a security control in itself. Continuous auditing beats one-time audits, and using AI-driven analysis on your own code before attackers do is increasingly a baseline instead of an edge. Above all, harden the operational layer: secure key management, tighten signing flows, limit privileged access, and scrutinize dependencies and cross-chain message verification, because that is where the year’s biggest breaches actually happened.
Over-reliance on any single external model carries its own risk, so teams are stress-testing multiple tools instead of betting on one. The same caution applies to exchanges and custodians, where exchange security is not just a proof-of-reserves page but a question of controls, custody, liabilities, and operational discipline. For protocols experimenting with AI agents in crypto, the lesson is even sharper: automation expands what software can do, but also expands what must be secured. The more autonomy a system has, the more dangerous weak permissions and signing flows become.
The honest conclusion is that the return of these models changes the tempo of an existing problem more than it introduces a new one. Crypto was already losing record sums to human error, operational failure, and bridge design long before Fable 5 came back online. Capable AI makes the reconnaissance faster, the attacks cheaper, and the response window shorter, which is a real near-term headwind for a chronically insecure industry. It also puts a powerful audit tool in defenders’ hands, which is the reason the long-run outcome is a race instead of a verdict.
The protocols and users who treat the moment as a prompt to fix the operational basics will be the ones best placed whichever way that race runs. The ones still relying on one-time audits, permissive approvals, weak admin keys, and slow patch cycles are the obvious targets. AI did not create those weaknesses. It just made them easier to find.
Frequently asked questions
What is Claude Mythos 5?
Claude Mythos 5 is a frontier AI model from Anthropic that the company describes as its most capable for cybersecurity, marketed as able to find and exploit software vulnerabilities more effectively than any other model and than all but the most skilled human experts. It is the less-restricted version of the Mythos class. Its safeguarded public sibling is called Fable 5. Mythos 5 is available only to vetted organizations, not the general public.
Why did the models go offline and come back?
In June 2026, researchers showed a jailbreak that got Fable 5 to identify vulnerabilities and write exploit code, and the U.S. government issued an emergency export-control order. Anthropic disabled both models globally because it could not restrict access by nationality in real time. The controls were lifted at the end of June, and access returned in early July, with Fable 5 restored globally and Mythos 5 limited to vetted U.S. organizations. The important distinction is that the public model and the restricted cyber model did not come back under the same access rules.
Can these AI models really hack crypto protocols?
They can accelerate the work attackers already do rather than invent new attacks. Mythos-class models reportedly found more than 10,000 high-severity flaws in important software and can build a proof-of-concept exploit in under an hour. In crypto, the larger effect is speeding up reconnaissance and the human-facing parts of attacks, since the biggest 2026 losses came from social engineering, exposed keys, and operational failures instead of novel contract bugs. That makes unaudited protocols, weak bridge setups, and poor key management especially exposed.
How much has crypto lost to hacks in 2026?
Crypto has lost more than $840 million to hacks in 2026, with some tallies exceeding $940 million across more than 120 incidents, and April alone set a record near $600 million. The two largest losses were Kelp DAO at about $292 million from a bridge message forgery and Drift Protocol at about $285 million from a social engineering operation that compromised administrative keys. Those examples matter because they show where the real losses are coming from: not only code flaws, but operational and verification failures. AI makes those weak points easier to find and exploit faster.
Does AI make crypto hacks fundamentally worse?
The consensus among many security experts is that AI accelerates and scales existing attack types instead of creating new ones. It lowers the cost and expertise needed to find flaws, which most exposes unaudited protocols and small projects. Skeptics, including some builders and Anthropic’s own review, argue the marginal danger of any single model is smaller than headlines suggest, since weaker models can do similar work and the hardest part of most attacks is not finding the flaw. The risk is therefore less about one model suddenly changing everything and more about AI-assisted hacking becoming broadly available.
Can AI also help defend crypto?
Yes, and that is the contested part of the debate. The same ability to find vulnerabilities fast makes AI a powerful audit tool when defenders use it first. In one case, a weaker model discovered a four-year-old critical flaw in a privacy coin’s shielded pool before it was exploited. Anthropic argues AI will eventually favor defenders, while admitting the transition will be turbulent, so the outcome depends on who adopts the tools faster.
What should crypto holders do to protect themselves?
Security researchers recommend revoking unused token approvals, moving significant holdings into self-custody and cold storage where keys sit offline, and treating unaudited protocols as higher risk. When signing transactions, use a device with a trusted screen that shows exactly what is being approved. These steps address the human and operational failures that account for most real losses, which AI mainly accelerates instead of replacing. The goal is to reduce the number of places where an attacker can turn a mistake into a transfer.
Is Mythos 5 available to the public now?
No. After the export controls were lifted, Anthropic restored the safeguarded Fable 5 to global users, but the less-restricted Mythos 5 returned only to a set of vetted U.S. organizations that defend critical infrastructure, through an opt-in program. The company says it will work to expand access over time, but the model with the full cyber capability is not behind a consumer subscription. Public users may have access to stronger AI tools than before, but not to the same unrestricted Mythos 5 setup described in the security program.
Disclaimer: This article is for information and educational purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment, legal, or security advice. It describes an evolving situation involving AI capabilities and cybersecurity risk, and details may change. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy, sell, or use any specific model, asset, or service. Always do your own research and consult qualified professionals for security decisions. Information is accurate as of July 2, 2026, and may change.
Japanese investment firm Metaplanet continued its corporate Bitcoin buildout in the second quarter, adding 2,823 BTC at an average price of about 12.71 million yen (roughly $78,850 at current exchange rates). The purchase pushed the company’s total holdings above 43,000 Bitcoin, while slightly lowering its average acquisition cost.
Separately, the story also highlights a contrasting trend among some smaller treasury-focused companies. South Korean firm K Wave Media exited its Bitcoin treasury strategy after selling its remaining BTC to address debt, while France-based Sequans Communications previously said it would monetize its remaining holdings over time.
Key takeaways
- Metaplanet bought 2,823 BTC in Q2, bringing its total to more than 43,000 BTC and reducing its average cost per coin.
- The latest tranche was acquired at an average price of about 12.71 million yen per BTC, lowering Metaplanet’s average acquisition cost to roughly $95,117.
- Metaplanet reported about $10.95 million in quarterly revenue linked to Bitcoin income-generation strategies involving options premiums and related yield methods.
- K Wave Media sold its last 88 BTC to repay debt, ending its Bitcoin treasury approach after earlier plans to expand holdings.
- Not every corporate treasury is expanding: Sequans Communications previously signaled that it would monetize its remaining Bitcoin holdings over time.
Metaplanet expands holdings and refines its cost base
According to a Thursday announcement from Metaplanet, the company acquired 2,823 Bitcoin during the second quarter at an average price of about 12.71 million yen per BTC. That figure matters because it was below Metaplanet’s prior average purchase price, enabling the firm to reduce its blended cost basis.
The acquisition lowered Metaplanet’s average acquisition cost to about $95,117 per BTC, down from approximately $96,258 previously. Metaplanet’s total Bitcoin holdings now stand at 43,000 BTC acquired for an aggregate value of about $4.1 billion, based on the figures in the company’s announcement.
Beyond accumulation, Metaplanet also disclosed quarterly performance tied to its Bitcoin income strategy. The company reported around $10.95 million in revenue from Bitcoin-related activities during the quarter. The approach, as described in the announcement, centers on earning premiums by selling cash-secured options and deploying other Bitcoin yield tactics.
For investors, the combination of spot purchases and options-based income generation is a key part of how treasury-style Bitcoin companies attempt to justify their equity valuations. When Bitcoin’s price is volatile, these revenue mechanisms can, in theory, partially offset drawdowns—though the net effect depends on execution, market conditions, and counterparty or strategy risks (none of which are detailed in this particular excerpt).
Shares move, but the broader performance picture remains uneven
Metaplanet’s equity performance reflected modest market optimism around the filing. The company’s shares closed Thursday up 3.5%, though the stock remains down about 48% year-to-date, according to the linked market page cited in the source text.
That underperformance also stands out against Bitcoin itself, which the source notes fell 31% over the same year-to-date period. The contrast underscores a persistent reality for corporate Bitcoin holders: even when a company keeps buying and building a large BTC position, investors may still reprice the stock due to factors like equity dilution risk, funding costs, valuation assumptions, or the market’s perception of how sustainable treasury income is.
The Metaplanet update comes during an ongoing push by several corporate buyers—yet the story is not purely one-directional, as other firms are trimming exposure.
Treasury strategies: K Wave Media exits after selling remaining BTC
While Metaplanet added Bitcoin, K Wave Media—an Nasdaq-listed company in South Korea—went in the opposite direction. The company sold its remaining 88 BTC to repay $6 million in debt, exiting its Bitcoin treasury strategy, according to a Tuesday filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The SEC filing indicates a sharper reversal than what the company had previously communicated. Earlier coverage referenced in the source text describes K Wave Media’s July 2025 announcement that it secured $1 billion in capital capacity to drive its Bitcoin treasury strategy and aimed to expand holdings to 10,000 BTC. Exiting after holding only 88 BTC suggests the original plan ran into constraints—whether financial, operational, or strategic—though the excerpted material does not specify the reasons.
This kind of turnaround is important for readers because it highlights a mismatch risk that can exist in treasury models: plans premised on sustained capital access, favorable volatility, and consistent BTC purchase economics may not survive changing market conditions or debt obligations.
Other companies continue to monetize rather than accumulate
The source also points to Sequans Communications, a France-based semiconductor company that said in May it would monetize its remaining Bitcoin holdings over time. At the time of that announcement, Sequans reported holding 658 BTC, and its shares reportedly rose about 14.5% after the disclosure.
Taken together with K Wave Media’s decision to exit, the broader takeaway is that corporate Bitcoin strategies are diverging. Some companies are doubling down through additional spot buying and structured income strategies, while others are winding down exposure, using Bitcoin holdings to address liabilities, or planning to gradually convert BTC into cash.
Even within the same sector, these choices can produce very different investor outcomes depending on each firm’s balance sheet, debt profile, and how its equity market values the “BTC treasury” thesis.
Looking ahead, investors should watch whether Metaplanet can sustain its Bitcoin income-generation revenue while continuing to manage its cost basis, and whether other treasury-focused firms follow K Wave Media and Sequans toward monetization or debt reduction. The key uncertainty across all these cases remains whether corporate models that rely on both holding BTC and generating yield can hold up as market conditions and financing access evolve.
The National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE) endorsed the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act (CLARITY Act) in a letter to Senate leaders John Thune and Chuck Schumer.
Notably, NOBLE has become the first major law enforcement group to formally back the bill. The endorsement lands as the bill faces hurdles over ethics and illicit finance concerns.
NOBLE Endorses CLARITY Act
The letter was signed by NOBLE National President Reneé Hall. Hall, a former Dallas police chief, said the bill gives law enforcement new capabilities while preserving longstanding criminal enforcement authorities.
In its letter, the group pointed to expanded regulatory obligations across the digital asset industry, stronger forfeiture authorities, new compliance expectations, and added oversight of crypto kiosks.
“Collectively, these provisions have the potential to improve investigative visibility and provide law enforcement with additional tools to combat financial crime,” the letter reads.
The group also emphasized that the bill does not modify existing federal criminal authorities used to prosecute offenses such as money laundering, unlicensed money transmission, conspiracy, sanctions violations, and related crimes.
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A Break From Other Law Enforcement Groups
The position sets NOBLE apart from other police and prosecutor organizations. The National District Attorneys Association, the National Association of Assistant US Attorneys, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, and the National Sheriffs’ Association previously raised concerns regarding the bill.
Their objections center on Section 604. A coalition of Catholic sisters also asked Senate leadership to reexamine the lack of provisions on illicit finance, anti-money laundering, and accountability.
Despite the opposition, industry advocates keep pressing for floor time. Stand With Crypto urged supporters this week to lobby their senators.
The bill still needs 60 votes on the Senate floor, meaning seven Democrats must cross over. Whether a law enforcement endorsement softens resistance to Section 604 may become clearer once senators return.
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The post First Major Law Enforcement Group Endorses CLARITY Act in Letter to Senate appeared first on BeInCrypto.
The HCMC did not immediately respond to a CoinDesk request for comment regarding Binance’s MiCA licensing process.
“As the person who led the license application, there’s nothing that I have been made aware of that there was any issue with the application,” Lynch added. “In fact, I was told the complete opposite.”
Lynch also argued that Europe’s crypto market loses more than just its largest exchange if Binance remains outside the MiCA framework. She said Binance provides liquidity and market infrastructure that benefit the wider crypto ecosystem, adding that regulation should strengthen the industry rather than exclude companies that have invested heavily to meet its standards.
Lynch declined to speculate on reports that political intervention played a role in the delays. Instead, she said the focus is now on helping users through the transition period while preparing a new licensing strategy.
“We’re very committed to being in Europe and very committed to being regulated,” she said.
Despite Binance’s experience, Lynch described MiCA as a positive step for the industry. She said the regulation has helped bring crypto into the financial services system by providing firms with clear rules and consumers with greater protection.
“I fundamentally believe the crypto industry is maturing. Regulation brings maturity,” she said. “The industry is here to stay, and it’s part of the financial services ecosystem.”
Crypto World
Franklin Templeton Executes Tokenized U.S. Treasury Trade With Stablecoins on Canton Network
TLDR:
- Franklin Templeton exchanged a tokenized Treasury security for tokenized cash using on-chain settlement.
- The transaction paired a tokenized U.S. Treasury with USDCx and settled through Canton Network infrastructure.
- Tradeweb executed and priced the trade while several financial firms participated in the transaction.
- The deal occurred after market hours and was later reported to TRACE, according to Christopher Perkins.
Franklin Templeton has completed a tokenized U.S. Treasury transaction using stablecoins and on-chain settlement infrastructure. The trade involved the exchange of a tokenized Treasury security for tokenized cash on the Canton Network.
Tradeweb facilitated execution and price discovery while several financial firms supported the transaction. The deal adds to institutional efforts to move real-world assets onto blockchain-based financial rails.
Tokenized U.S. Treasury Trade Executes on Canton Network
Tradeweb announced the completion of the real-time transaction on July 1. The trade paired an on-chain U.S. Treasury with tokenized cash known as USDCx.
According to the announcement, Franklin Templeton transferred a tokenized Treasury security to Virtu Financial. In return, Virtu delivered USDCx through synchronized settlement on the Canton Network.
Tradeweb supplied the execution venue and pricing services for the transaction. The Canton Network coordinated the simultaneous movement of both assets on-chain.
Participants included Blockdaemon, Digital Asset, Franklin Templeton, Societe Generale, Tradeweb, and Virtu Financial. The transaction was also reported to TRACE after execution.
Christopher Perkins, president of CoinFund and former Coinbase executive, said on X that the trade took place after normal market hours. He noted that the transaction settled nearly instantly and represented another step toward continuous on-chain markets.
Tokenized Real-World Assets Gain Institutional Momentum
Tradeweb said the transaction demonstrates how tokenized U.S. Treasuries and tokenized cash can settle in real time. The company noted that traditional timing and settlement limitations did not apply to the process.
The transaction also arrives as the Canton Network prepares for the launch of DTCC’s Tokenization Services later this year. According to the announcement, the initiative aims to support broader access to high-quality liquid assets beyond traditional market hours.
Digital Asset said the transaction marked another milestone in developing always-on and interoperable capital markets infrastructure. The company added that continuous market making can increase asset utility and improve market accessibility.
Franklin Templeton described each tokenized transaction as another step toward a round-the-clock liquidity layer. The asset manager stated that on-chain capabilities can allow high-quality assets to move without the restrictions of standard market schedules.
Virtu Financial said the trade expands its market-making capabilities into tokenized U.S. Treasuries. The company added that blockchain-based settlement can support liquidity provision without conventional settlement constraints.
The Canton Network said active participation from firms including Franklin Templeton, Tradeweb, and Virtu Financial contributes to a unified framework for moving real-world assets across digital financial systems.
Strategy’s long streak as one of Bitcoin’s most consistent institutional buyers may be ending, according to Bitwise chief investment officer Matt Hougan. Speaking Thursday, Hougan suggested the company’s dominance as a “one-way” source of demand is likely to shrink in the next market cycle, after volatility around Strategy’s principal perpetual preferred stock product, Stretch (STRC).
The reassessment comes after STRC broke sharply from its $100 par value to below $75 late last month, a move that undermined investor confidence in the sustainability of Strategy’s dividend-style model. The timing also overlapped with broader market stress, when Bitcoin fell to a 21-month low of $58,190 on June 25.
Key takeaways
- Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan said Strategy’s era as Bitcoin’s dominant buyer may be over, with other institutional allocators expected to play a larger role next cycle.
- STRC’s move away from $100 par value below $75 fueled concerns about whether Strategy’s yield structure can hold up through “end-of-cycle” dynamics.
- Despite the STRC shock, Hougan argued Strategy is not facing near-term liquidity risk based on liquid asset coverage.
- Strive CEO Matt Cole pushed back, calling the STRC episode overblown and noting Strategy’s Bitcoin holdings are about 4% of total supply.
Strategy’s buyer dominance questioned after STRC turmoil
For years, Strategy has been widely viewed as a steady, high-conviction buyer of Bitcoin—helping provide consistent demand even when broader sentiment weakened. Hougan framed Thursday’s comments around a shift in what investors should expect from that demand profile.
“For years, Strategy has been the most dominant Bitcoin buyer in the world and a one-way source of Bitcoin demand. Those days are likely over,” Hougan said in a CIO memo, adding that he expects the company to be “less important” than it was in the previous cycle. In his view, banks, asset managers, pensions, endowments, and sovereign wealth funds may replace Strategy as Bitcoin’s primary demand engine as the next upcycle develops.
Hougan’s concern centers on how STRC behaved during a period when markets were already under pressure. The STRC incident raised fears that the structure underpinning dividend payments could be strained when conditions tighten—particularly in late-cycle environments where risk appetite falls and funding costs rise.
Why Hougan sees STRC as “end-of-cycle dynamics”
Hougan characterized the STRC drop as a pattern he associates with late-cycle stress. He compared the situation to a prior example in 2021: the collapse of Grayscale’s GBTC premium.
His argument is essentially about fit. According to Hougan, “money searching for high yields and low volatility was used to buy Bitcoin, which offers neither.” In that framing, the market eventually needs to “clear out” capital that was attracted by yield characteristics that Bitcoin itself does not reliably provide, before a more durable bottom can form.
This perspective matters for traders and longer-term investors because it reframes Strategy’s recent volatility away from a single-company solvency story and toward a broader liquidity-and-demand composition story—one where the source of marginal demand changes as the cycle matures.
Strategy responds: funding dividends and increasing reserves
In the aftermath of the STRC disruption, Strategy said it would sell Bitcoin when necessary to fund dividends, according to coverage earlier published by Cointelegraph. The company also expanded its US dollar reserve to $2.55 billion, easing some immediate concerns about operational coverage.
Even with those steps, Hougan said Strategy’s role as an aggressive buyer has weakened. The implication for market participants is that reserve moves and occasional Bitcoin sales can stabilize the dividend narrative in the short term, but may also reduce the consistency of net buying during turbulent periods.
Hougan nonetheless said he still expects Strategy to be a “net buyer” in the next bull run—suggesting the firm’s long-term posture may persist, even if its influence on price dynamics is likely to be less dominant than in the last cycle.
Debate over materiality and liquidity risk
While STRC became the focal point, Strategy leadership pushed back on how much attention the incident deserves. Strive CEO Matt Cole argued that the episode has been overemphasized by media and that Bitcoin’s selloff may have been driven more by the broader market than by any single factor.
Speaking with NovaDius Wealth Management president Nate Geraci, Cole noted that Strategy’s 847,363 Bitcoin represents about 4% of total supply. He also referenced US Securities and Exchange Commission standards for materiality, stating that a 4% stake would not be considered material under SEC thresholds, which he described as starting at 5%.
“If one person owned 4%, you don’t even have to report that publicly to the SEC because the SEC deems 4% to be immaterial. They start to view a position to be material at 5%.”
Hougan, meanwhile, addressed liquidity in a more quantitative way. He said Strategy has $52 billion worth of liquid assets marked against $7 billion of debt. In his assessment, Bitcoin would need to fall another 70%—to roughly $18,500—for Strategy to face risk. He also added that if the company began selling Bitcoin immediately, it could cover dividends from STRC and other perpetual preferred stock offerings for the next 28 years.
Taken together, the two positions highlight a tension that investors should watch: one view suggests the STRC mechanism is a late-cycle stress test that affects demand composition and price, while the other emphasizes reserve coverage and argues that the company’s balance sheet prevents an immediate liquidity threat.
For now, the key question is not whether Strategy can operate through the current strain, but whether the market’s next wave of Bitcoin buying will be driven by the same yield-seeking, vehicle-based demand—or by a broader set of long-term allocators that Hougan expects to take a bigger share.
As conditions evolve, investors should monitor whether STRC stabilizes relative to par and whether Strategy’s net buying pace remains consistent enough to reassert influence—while also tracking if incremental demand truly shifts from Strategy-style products to the wider institutional categories Hougan cited.
Riot Platforms transferred another 500 BTC to NYDIG Custody, according to Arkham data cited by onchain trackers.
Summary
- Riot Platforms moved another 500 BTC to NYDIG Custody, raising fresh sale speculation among traders.
- The miner already sold 3,778 BTC in Q1 while producing only 1,473 BTC total.
- Public Bitcoin miners continue selling reserves as mining costs rise and margins remain under pressure.
The transfer was worth about $30.72 million at the time of the report and was shared through an Onchain Lens post.
The move may signal that Riot is preparing to sell part of its Bitcoin holdings. Transfers to custody or execution partners do not always confirm a sale, but similar Riot transfers this year have often come before reported selling activity.
Another move in a longer sale pattern
The latest transfer follows earlier Riot activity involving NYDIG. As crypto.news reported in April, Riot sent 500 BTC to an NYDIG deposit address in a move worth about $39 million at the time. That report said the transfer added to a series of Bitcoin moves from Riot over the same period.
Riot had also disclosed large Bitcoin sales in its first-quarter 2026 operations update. The company sold 3,778 BTC in Q1 for about $289.5 million. It sold those coins at an average net price of $76,626 per BTC.
Riot produced 1,473 BTC in the first quarter, down 4% from 1,530 BTC in the same period a year earlier. Its BTC holdings fell to 15,680 at quarter-end, down 18% from 19,223 in Q1 2025. The company said 5,802 BTC were restricted at the end of the quarter.
Riot’s Q1 results also showed pressure in its mining business. Bitcoin mining revenue fell to $111.9 million from $142.9 million a year earlier. Riot linked the decline to lower average Bitcoin prices and higher network hash rate.
Miner selling pressure continues
Riot’s latest BTC movement comes as public miners face tighter economics after the Bitcoin halving. Higher mining difficulty, lower hashprice, energy costs, and capital needs have pushed several listed miners to sell reserves.
As crypto.news reported, publicly traded Bitcoin miners sold more than 32,000 BTC in the first quarter of 2026. That was a record quarterly figure and topped the amount sold by the same firms across all of 2025. Riot, MARA, CleanSpark, Cango, Core Scientific, and Bitdeer were among the miners named in that wider trend.
Riot also continues to expand beyond Bitcoin mining. The company has been building a data center business while using its power assets and infrastructure to serve high-performance computing customers. That shift gives the miner another capital need at a time when mining margins remain tight.
The 500 BTC transfer does not confirm an immediate sale on its own. Still, the timing adds to the market’s focus on Riot’s treasury strategy.
Ether and solana led crypto higher on Friday as a squeeze on bearish traders pushed bitcoin toward $62,000, capping the market’s first genuinely strong week since mid June.
Bitcoin traded around $61,360, up 2.5% over seven days, per CoinDesk data. Ether rose 4.2% in 24 hours to about $1,702 and is up 9.7% on the week, while solana held near $80 with a weekly gain of 18.6%, the strongest among the majors. XRP added 5.7% over the week to $1.09 and Hyperliquid’s HYPE rose 5.1% on the day.
Traders betting against crypto lost $281 million to liquidations over the past 24 hours, against $159 million in longs, out of $440 million in total forced closures across 95,690 traders, according to Coinglass data.
When shorts are forced to close, they buy back the asset, and that buying pushes prices into the next tranche of shorts, the loop that turns a modest bounce into a squeeze.
The largest single liquidation was an $18.2 million ether position on Hyperliquid, fitting a day when ether led the damage to bears at $157 million in wiped positions against bitcoin’s $103 million in an unusual flip.
The U.S.-listed bitcoin ETFs pulled in $221.7 million on Thursday, their largest inflow in two months, according to SoSoValue.
Fidelity’s FBTC led the charge with a hefty $165.96 million inflow, followed by ARKB at $91.84 million and HODL at $4.35 million. BlackRock’s IBIT, the world’s largest Bitcoin ETF, was the outlier with a $40.43 million outflow.
The cumulative inflow ends a painful 10-day outflow streak that saw investors pull $2.73 billion from the funds. Even so, the year-to-date picture remains ugly, with net outflows still sitting at a hefty $5.4 billion.
Thursday’s bounce is therefore a drop in the ocean compared to the selling we’ve seen this year. Still, it’s a welcome sigh of relief for the bulls. At the very least, it helps validate bitcoin’s rebound to around $61,700 after hitting 21-month lows under $58,000 earlier this week.
For a real recovery, though, these inflows need to turn into a consistent trend. Historically, steady money flowing into Bitcoin ETFs has been a hallmark of bull runs.
Binance is reportedly set to lead a new funding round for Mesh, a crypto payments and settlement company, at a valuation of up to $2 billion.
Summary
- Binance’s planned lead role could double Mesh’s valuation from $1B to as much as $2B.
- Mesh’s payments network targets digital asset transfers across wallets, exchanges, stablecoins, and fiat rails globally.
- Growing stablecoin rules and tokenization demand are pushing investors toward crypto settlement infrastructure providers.
The deal was reported by Axios, citing people familiar with the matter. The report said demand for digital asset-to-fiat transfer tools, payment systems, and settlement infrastructure is rising.
Meanwhile, that demand comes as stablecoin rules become clearer and tokenization moves deeper into financial markets. The round has not been formally announced by Binance or Mesh.
Mesh valuation could double
The reported round would mark a sharp rise in Mesh’s valuation. As crypto.news reported, Mesh raised a $75 million Series C in January at a $1 billion valuation. That round was led by Dragonfly Capital, with backing from Paradigm, Moderne Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, SBI Investment, and Liberty City Ventures.
Mesh was formerly known as Front Finance. The company builds payment infrastructure that connects wallets, exchanges, digital assets, and fiat rails. It aims to make crypto payments easier for users while letting merchants receive stablecoins or fiat without handling complex blockchain steps.
Stablecoin rules lift demand
Stablecoins have become a major focus for payment companies, exchanges, and banks. Banking Circle launched regulated stablecoin settlement services after receiving approval in Luxembourg. The bank now supports USDC, USDG, and its own EURI for institutional fiat and crypto conversion.
The market is also moving toward tokenized bank deposits. As crypto.news reported, major U.S. banks are backing a tokenized deposit network through the Clearing House, with a launch targeted for early 2027. That system would let banks settle tokenized deposits around the clock while keeping customer deposits inside regulated banking channels.
Funding race turns to settlement
Mesh sits in the middle of this shift because it focuses on the movement of value between assets, wallets, and payment systems. Its model addresses a common issue in crypto payments: users may hold one asset, while merchants or platforms may want settlement in another asset or in fiat currency.
The company has also worked to expand access through partnerships. Moreover, Mesh partnered with Italy’s crypto wallet Conio in 2024, giving Conio users access to several crypto exchanges and withdrawal options through Mesh’s connection layer.
A Binance-led round would show that large exchanges still see payment and settlement infrastructure as a core growth area. It would also place Mesh closer to the center of the stablecoin and tokenization race, where firms are trying to connect crypto rails with everyday payments, institutional transfers, and fiat settlement.
The reported valuation also reflects a wider shift in crypto funding. Investors have moved beyond trading apps and tokens toward systems that can support regulated payments, cross-border transfers, and asset settlement.
If the round closes near the reported level, Mesh would have doubled its valuation in about six months, showing continued demand for infrastructure that links digital assets with traditional money.
TLDR:
- Ironwood testnet activates with two independent consensus implementations built by separate teams.
- Zcash reduced ten-note wallet migration times from around 15 minutes to about 2.5 minutes.
- Multi-transaction signing now supports more than 11 transactions through a single QR code.
- Mainnet activation could occur around July 21 as audits and ZIP specifications near completion.
Zcash is moving forward with its Ironwood network upgrade after confirming a scheduled testnet activation. The update introduces new consensus changes and major wallet performance improvements ahead of a planned mainnet deployment.
Development teams have also completed two independent consensus implementations for the upgrade. The work marks one of the most advanced testnet preparations recorded for a Zcash network upgrade.
Zcash Ironwood Testnet Upgrade Brings Dual Consensus Implementations
Zcash developer Dev announced that the Ironwood testnet upgrade would activate on July 4. The release includes two independently developed consensus implementations.
One implementation came from Valar Group, while the other was built by the Zcash Foundation. According to Dev, the Valar Group version has already entered the audit process.
The teams also released a desktop wallet fork that supports migration testing on the testnet. Users with Keystone development devices can update firmware and test migration functions before the mainnet launch.
The upgrade introduces multi-transaction signing through a single QR code. Dev said the feature required extensive work behind the scenes and represented a major technical milestone for the testnet.
Contributors from zodl also participated in the process. The group worked on technical specifications, wallet libraries, circuit updates, and application programming interfaces supporting Ironwood.
Zcash Wallet Performance Improves Ahead of Mainnet Activation
Development updates shared by Dev showed major gains in wallet migration performance. The time needed to complete a ten-note migration fell from around 15 minutes to approximately two and a half minutes.
Inbound QR scanning dropped from three minutes to one minute. Loading and transaction review declined from two minutes to 45 seconds.
The signing process posted the largest improvement. Signing time fell from roughly nine minutes to about 37 seconds.
Outbound QR scanning also became faster. The process now takes about 10 seconds compared with roughly one minute previously.
In a separate update, Zcash developer Sean Bowe said all Ironwood consensus rule changes had been implemented and were undergoing audits.
He added that the specifications and Zcash Improvement Proposals, known as ZIPs, were approaching their final state.
Bowe also said developers expected readiness for a mainnet activation around July 21. He confirmed that the official testnet activation was scheduled for the following day and noted that the Zebra release supporting Ironwood should become available around the same time.
According to Bowe, sufficient mining hash rate already signals technical readiness for the mainnet upgrade. He noted that some wallets may not support Ironwood immediately, although alternative options and testnet preparation time remain available before activation.
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