Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz believes Bitcoin’s latest decline is linked to growing concerns around Strategy, along with macroeconomic stress and weak crypto market sentiment.

According to Novogratz, Strategy’s 32 BTC sale rattled the market, while investors are also concerned about the company’s funding model, which has undermined confidence in the broader cryptocurrency market.

Novogratz Raises Strategy Concerns

Novogratz believes these concerns could lead to a crisis of confidence across the Bitcoin and cryptocurrency markets. Strategy is the largest public corporate holder of Bitcoin, with 847,363 BTC. As a result, traders use the company’s stock and preferred securities to judge risk across the Bitcoin market.

Strategy has been under substantial pressure in recent weeks as its stock value fell below the value of its Bitcoin holdings. This has made it harder for the company to raise fresh capital, impacting market confidence.

Strategy Under Pressure

Novogratz also highlighted that Strategy’s preferred products were under pressure. STRC, the company’s preferred stock product, is currently trading around $74.57, significantly lower than its intended $100 mark. Additionally, annual dividend obligations have risen to $1.2 billion, while dividend coverage dropped to 14 months thanks to declining cash reserves. Macroeconomic pressures are another reason behind Bitcoin’s decline. The Federal Reserve remains hawkish, while a stronger dollar could reduce demand for risk assets, including Bitcoin.

Substantial ETF outflows have also put pressure on Bitcoin. Bitcoin ETFs have recorded a seven-day outflow streak, with investors pulling out over $1.8 billion since June 17.

Bitcoin Sale Undermined Confidence

Novogratz added that Strategy’s decision to sell 32 BTC after claiming it would never sell rattled the market. The company sold the Bitcoin for $2.5 million between May 26 and May 31, at an average price of $77,135. While the amount was insignificant, the symbolism was not, with Strategy barely making a profit on the sale. The sale has raised uncomfortable questions about the impact of future sales on Bitcoin’s price. A larger sale could drag Bitcoin prices lower and put more pressure on Strategy’s balance sheet.

Novogratz highlighted Strategy’s $14 billion in unrealized losses as another factor that has bogged down investor sentiment.

Bitcoin Could Slip Below $50,000

Novogratz also warned of a drop below $50,000 if Bitcoin loses the $59,000 to $60,000 zone. A drop below these levels could trigger a wave of liquidations. A drop below $50,000 could see Bitcoin decline as low as $45,000 before rebounding. However, if the flagship cryptocurrency manages to stay above $59,000 to $60,000, it could help calm a jittery market.

Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Galaxy Digital has cut its probability estimate for the US Senate passing the CLARITY Act in 2026 to a 50-50 proposition, arguing that lawmakers have less time than before to secure a floor vote before the Senate’s August recess. The adjustment underscores how procedural calendar constraints—rather than broad political debate—may ultimately decide whether the bill reaches the finish line.

Galaxy’s chief firmwide research officer, Alex Thorn, said the downgrade is primarily about timing and Senate logistics, including the absence of a single, unified Senate Banking-Agriculture text and the lack of a set schedule for floor consideration. In a separate comment, Thorn also pointed to intensified competition for agenda time in Washington after President Donald Trump cancelled the signing of a bipartisan housing bill and linked a potential path forward to passage of the SAVE Act.

Key takeaways

• Galaxy Digital now assigns a 50% chance the CLARITY Act will clear the US Senate in 2026, down from 60% (June 9) and 75% (May 22).
• Alex Thorn attributed the latest cut mainly to timing: no unified Senate Banking-Agriculture bill text, no confirmed floor schedule, and a narrowing legislative window before August recess.
• The Senate’s work period runs until July 10, followed by the traditional August recess beginning Aug. 8 and resuming Sept. 14, tightening the window for action.
• Thorn said political and procedural fights elsewhere—particularly debate connected to the SAVE Act—are further crowding the Senate’s legislative queue.
• CLARITY has already cleared the Senate Banking Committee in May, but critics have argued it could allow crypto firms to pay yields on stablecoins without the same constraints as traditional financial institutions.

Galaxy halves the odds, citing Senate timing

In the update shared by Galaxy’s research head, Alex Thorn, the firm reduced its estimate for the CLARITY Act’s passage in 2026 to 50-50. The reasoning is grounded in process: Thorn highlighted that the Senate Banking-Agriculture committee work does not appear to have converged into a single consolidated text, and lawmakers have not established a clear floor timetable.

That uncertainty matters to market participants because the practical path for a major crypto regulatory framework depends on whether a bill can be scheduled for debate and voting when the chamber is already managing a crowded docket. Thorn emphasized that Galaxy’s recalibration concerns the bill’s timeline rather than changes in the underlying policy direction.

The downgrade also arrives after Galaxy previously lowered its estimate in stages. According to Galaxy’s own prior positioning, it cut the odds from 75% to 60% on June 9, after raising them to 75% earlier on May 22.

The legislative calendar is narrowing before the August recess

Thorn’s remarks place the CLARITY Act’s prospects in the context of the Senate’s near-term schedule. The US Senate has entered a work period from Monday until July 10. The chamber is then expected to start its traditional five-week August recess on Aug. 8, returning to Washington on Sept. 14, according to the Senate’s legislative schedule posted at Senate.gov.

With that timeline in mind, Thorn argued that even bipartisan bills can struggle when leadership has to balance multiple items for floor consideration. He said the debate over the SAVE Act has “inject[ed] another contentious, leadership-consuming fight into an already crowded queue,” suggesting that calendar pressure is compounding political complexity.

Thorn also pointed to other “unfinished developments” that could compete for attention, including Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal year 2027, which he characterized as must-pass legislation and a frequent focus of political negotiation. In practical terms, that means CLARITY may need to secure a narrow slot in a pipeline already filled with issues that leadership may treat as higher priority.

House progress and the debate over stablecoin yield rules

The CLARITY Act is designed to create what proponents describe as the first comprehensive US regulatory framework for digital assets. The bill is scheduled for a House hearing on July 17, and it already advanced in the Senate when it cleared the Senate Banking Committee in May.

However, the bill’s political reception has not been uniform. The measure faced criticism from within the debate in the Senate Banking process, with many Democrats and representatives of the banking industry arguing that the legislation could allow crypto firms to offer yields on stablecoins without meeting the same regulatory requirements imposed on traditional financial institutions.

That critique highlights a central tension in US digital-asset policymaking: whether regulators should treat stablecoin-linked financial products similarly to conventional banking and securities activities, or whether the crypto sector’s unique architecture calls for a distinct framework. While the bill has moved past one legislative checkpoint, those substantive concerns could still influence how quickly—or whether—leadership is willing to allocate floor time.

Outside pressure and competing concerns

The CLARITY Act has attracted significant outside engagement, including industry lobbying and law-enforcement concerns that the measure could create oversight gaps.

Earlier in June, more than 200 crypto companies and organizations urged the Senate to pass the CLARITY Act in a letter shared by the crypto lobby group Stand With Crypto, according to earlier coverage at Cointelegraph. Later in June, reporting referenced that a coalition involving law enforcement organizations and Catholic groups reached out to White House officials raising concerns about potential weaknesses in how illicit activity might be supervised under the bill. Earlier coverage at Cointelegraph described those concerns.

While these competing positions do not by themselves determine the bill’s fate, they can affect whether leadership believes a floor vote is politically manageable—particularly when, as Thorn argues, the Senate is already squeezed for time.

For traders and long-term investors, the key question now is whether CLARITY can secure the procedural steps needed for a floor schedule before the Senate’s August recess begins. Galaxy’s revised odds suggest that even a bill with committee momentum may stall if leadership cannot find room in the calendar—so readers should watch closely for any sign of a unified Senate bill text and for whether floor timing becomes more concrete after July 10.

Foreign exchange nightmare

Crypto was supposed to be an alternative to fiat, especially the dollar. Stablecoins are doing the opposite, and accelerating dollarization in the process, the BIS said.

The report found rising flows of non-dollar currencies into US dollar-pegged stablecoins, and said these flows can weaken domestic currencies in the spot market. They also expose friction in arbitrage between crypto markets and conventional foreign exchange (FX) markets, and may raise the cost of buying dollars through the FX swap market.

The BIS frames this as a new, faster version of an old problem: deposit dollarization, where households create foreign-currency bank deposits during periods of macroeconomic instability in the home country. The same triggers apply, the report says as high inflation and sovereign stress drive larger inflows into foreign stablecoins. And once that kind of dollarization takes hold, the BIS notes, it tends to persist for years.

What makes the stablecoin version harder to manage is enforcement. A number of countries, particularly emerging market and developing economies, have already imposed restrictions on cross-border stablecoin use. But the BIS says such measures “are, however, likely to be imperfect given the digital bearer-like nature of tokens and the availability of unhosted wallets.”

In other words, capital controls that work reasonably well on traditional bank deposits don’t translate cleanly to a self-custodied, borderless token.

SharpLink has continued its renewed Ether buying campaign by acquiring another 39,196 ETH worth about $62.4 million over the past three days after returning to the market last week.

According to on-chain data from Arkham, the crypto treasury company bought 5,000 ETH on Friday worth about $7.9 million, before adding another 29,196 ETH valued at roughly $46.7 million through three over the counter transactions on Saturday. The latest purchases followed a 5,000 ETH acquisition on Thursday, its first direct Ether purchase in eight months.

David “JoelKatz” Schwartz has proposed a transaction reservation plan for the XRP Ledger after fresh claims that users may still face front-running and sandwich attacks on payments, offer crossing, DEX trades and AMM swaps. 

The debate started after XRPresso said some actors may be able to view pending transactions before a ledger closes and use that information to target trades.

“A serious front-running issue continues on the XRPL that disadvantages regular users.” XRPresso said validators and well-connected nodes can view transactions in the pre-validation queue, then submit their own transactions to seek a better position in the final ledger order.

XRPresso said the issue matters most for users trading through wallets and dApps. According to the post, the final order inside each ledger follows a known deterministic process, and repeated submissions may raise the chance of landing near a target trade. That could worsen slippage for the original trader when a sandwich strategy succeeds.

Schwartz lays out a reservation scheme

“For the reasons I’ve explained, I’m not that concerned about this issue.” Schwartz wrote that the concern still deserved a practical answer. He then proposed a transaction reservation scheme that could make a disclosed transaction execute before any transaction formed after it became visible.

The plan would add a new ledger object called ReservedTxns. That object would hold a ledger sequence number and an array of transaction IDs. A new TxnReserve transaction would let a user reserve a slot for a transaction in a future ledger, as long as the request meets fee, timing and execution rules.

Schwartz said a reservation should cost at least twice the normal transaction fee. The target ledger would need to be greater than the current ledger and no more than 16 ledgers ahead. Each reserved object would hold fewer than 32 transaction IDs, unless the design later expands the cap.

Reserved transactions would run first

Under the proposal, a reserved transaction would be broadcast close to the point when the prior ledger’s proposals are known. Schwartz said XRPL software could add a feature to hold such transactions and release them only when that condition is met. The transaction should also set its last valid ledger to the ledger where it is expected to run.

When that ledger executes, the network would first check whether a ReservedTxns object exists for the ledger sequence number. If it exists, the network would execute listed transactions that are in the consensus set before other transactions. It would then remove them from the set to stop repeat execution and delete the reservation object.

XRPL documentation says canonical ordering is built to be deterministic, efficient and hard to game. Its DEX documentation also says transaction order is designed to discourage front-running because trades execute when a new ledger closes. However, XRPL’s algorithmic trading documentation says front-running is difficult, but not impossible.

DeFi upgrades raise the stakes

The timing comes as XRPL developers continue to expand the network’s DeFi stack. The XRPL Foundation recently proposed AMM Swappable Curves, a draft upgrade that would add StableSwap and concentrated liquidity options to the native automated market maker. XRPL is also preparing native lending and programmable escrow tools.

Those upgrades could bring more on-chain trading, credit and settlement activity to XRPL. Recent coverage also showed institutional use cases, including a tokenized Treasury settlement involving Ripple and JPMorgan. As activity grows, transaction ordering and pending trade visibility may draw more attention from builders, traders and validators.

Schwartz also addressed possible denial-of-service risks. He said an attacker could try to fill reservation slots across many ledgers, but rising fees could make that costly. Under one example, fees would rise once 16 slots are filled and could reach several times the base reserve near 30 slots. The proposal is not yet a formal amendment, but it gives the XRPL community a clear technical path to review.

Galaxy Digital has cut its odds of the CLARITY Act becoming law in 2026 to 50%, warning that the US Senate is running out of time to move the crypto market structure bill before its August recess.

“We are reducing our odds of CLARITY Act passage in 2026 to 50-50,” wrote Galaxy’s head of firmwide research, Alex Thorn, citing the lack of a unified Senate Banking-Agriculture text, no firm floor schedule and a narrowing legislative window before lawmakers leave Washington. 

Thorn said the downgrade was about the bill’s timing, not substance and added that the congressional competition for floor time “intensified” after US President Donald Trump abruptly canceled the signing of the bipartisan housing bill and said he would not sign it until Congress passed the SAVE Act, to introduce a proof-of-citizenship elections bill.

The downgrade comes after Galaxy lowered its previous estimate of the bill from 75% to 60% on June 9. On May 22, the company had raised its CLARITY Act estimate to 75%.

The CLARITY Act is set for a House hearing on July 17. The bill aims to establish the first regulatory framework for digital assets in the US, but it has been met with criticism. It cleared the Senate Banking Committee in May, with most Democrats and the banking industry pushing back, arguing that it would allow crypto firms to offer yields on stablecoins without facing the same requirements as traditional financial institutions.

Source: Alex Thorn

Congressional calendar squeezes crypto bill

The latest cut reflects mounting concern that even a bill with bipartisan support may not get enough floor time in a crowded Senate calendar.

Senate legislative schedule. Source: Senate.gov 

The US Senate has entered a state work period from Monday until July 10. The Senate is also scheduled to begin its traditional August recess on Aug. 8 for five weeks before returning to Washington on Sept. 14, according to its legislative schedule.

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The runway to pass the bill is quickly declining, said Thorn, adding that the debate over the SAVE Act “injects another contentious, leadership-consuming fight into an already crowded queue.” 

He added that the Senate is also working on two unfinished developments, including Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), to which the House failed to pass a reauthorization and the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for the fiscal year of 2027, which is considered “must-pass” legislation and is often the target of political debate.

At the beginning of June, over 200 crypto companies and organizations urged the US Senate to pass the CLARITY Act in a letter shared by crypto lobby group Stand With Crypto.

Later in June, a group of law enforcement organizations and a coalition of Catholic organizations reached out to White House officials with concerns that the CLARITY Act could create oversight gaps regarding illicit activity.  

Magazine: How crypto laws changed in 2025 — and how they’ll change in 2026

South Korean brokerage Kiwoom Securities has entered negotiations to acquire a stake in cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb through a planned purchase of newly issued shares, local media reported on Monday.

According to a ChosunBiz report, Kiwoom and Bithumb are discussing a third-party share allocation under which the exchange would issue new shares for Kiwoom to buy. The report added that both sides are still negotiating the size of the investment and the percentage stake, with no final terms agreed.

The proposed investment would add another major financial institution to South Korea’s digital asset sector as Hana Bank, one of the country’s four largest banks, disclosed plans last month to acquire a $670 million stake in Dunamu, the operator of Upbit. Local media later reported that three Samsung affiliates would purchase about $407.7 million worth of Dunamu shares, securing a combined 4% ownership interest.

Meanwhile, international cryptocurrency firms have also expanded their investments in the country. OKX Ventures announced in May that it would purchase a 19.6% stake in Coinone, while Binance completed its acquisition of Gopax after several years of regulatory delays.

Bithumb prepares for IPO as ownership talks continue

The investment negotiations come days after South Korea’s Personal Information Protection Commission fined Bithumb 210 million won, or about $136,000, for violating rules governing overseas transfers of personal information.

The regulator also ordered the exchange to revise its cross border data transfer procedures after finding that user information had been sent overseas without fully meeting requirements under the Personal Information Protection Act.

The privacy case followed earlier enforcement action against Bithumb over anti money laundering compliance. As previously reported by crypto.news, South Korean regulators imposed a 36.8 billion won penalty after identifying deficiencies related to customer due diligence, transaction monitoring, and transfers involving unregistered overseas virtual asset service providers. 

The Personal Information Protection Commission also published new blockchain privacy guidelines that require firms to address personal data protection when designing blockchain-based services.

In the meantime, Bithumb has continued preparations for a public listing while pursuing the investment discussions. The exchange has signed an IPO advisory agreement with Samjong KPMG that runs through the end of 2027, and Chief Financial Officer Jeong Sang-gyun said in April that the company expects to list in 2028.

South Korean lawmakers are also working on the Digital Asset Basic Act, which seeks to establish a comprehensive legal framework for cryptocurrencies. The proposed legislation would limit a single shareholder’s ownership in a cryptocurrency exchange to 20% in most cases, while allowing holdings of up to 34% under specific conditions that remain under discussion.