Vanguard has opened the search for a head of digital assets, creating a senior role that would oversee the firm’s strategy for cryptocurrencies and blockchain-based financial technology.

The position, listed within Vanguard Personal Wealth, calls for an executive to develop the firm’s digital asset vision, identify business opportunities and lead execution across product, technology, operations, legal and compliance teams. The candidate will also advise senior leadership on changes in digital asset markets, represent Vanguard in discussions with regulators and industry groups and help shape the firm’s long-term approach.

It also highlights other areas of the ecosystem, including tokenization, stablecoins, digital wallets, custody, blockchain-enabled settlement and operating models as areas the executive will evaluate, as well as determining whether Vanguard should build new capabilities internally, partner with third parties or delay entering certain parts of the market.

The search marks another step in Vanguard’s gradual shift toward digital assets after years of resisting the sector. The asset manager, which oversees roughly $10 trillion, remained one of crypto’s largest institutional skeptics while peers such as BlackRock, Fidelity and Franklin Templeton rolled out spot bitcoin ETFs and other blockchain initiatives.

The growing Bitcoin supply held at a loss suggests that the crypto market is nearing its cycle bottom, according to digital asset brokerage company K33.

Over 50% of all Bitcoin (BTC) is currently held at a loss, K33 said in a report published Tuesday.

K33 added that because the past year’s bull market was less extreme than previous cycles, the current downturn could also be less severe.

Historically, when more than half of the circulating supply has been underwater, Bitcoin has tended to be in the late stages of a bear market, making the metric one of several indicators analysts use to assess whether selling pressure may be nearing exhaustion.

Percent of the circulating BTC supply in loss. Source: K33

Past Bitcoin cycles bottomed within weeks of the signal

K33 said previous bear markets typically bottomed within weeks of more than half of Bitcoin’s supply being held at a loss.

During the 2017 bear market cycle, Bitcoin bottomed 31 days after over 50% of the BTC supply was held at a loss. Similarly, Bitcoin bottomed 23 days after half the supply was held at a loss in November 2018 and about 13 days after the same development in November 2022.

The 2014 cycle was an outlier, as Bitcoin only bottomed 101 days after half the supply was held at a loss. It was also the only cycle in which Bitcoin was lower one year after the signal, falling 25%.

Bitcoin during periods when 50% of the supply was held at a loss and its annual returns table for the following years. Source: K33

However, the report noted that large sellers, such as spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) holders, could make this cycle behave differently from previous ones because of their impact on price.

The spot Bitcoin ETFs registered two consecutive days of inflows, with $265 million on Monday, but saw $4.51 billion in net outflows in June, marking their worst month on record, according to Farside Investors data.

Related: Strategy sells 3,588 Bitcoin for $216M to fund dividends, keeps $2.55B reserve intact

Bitcoin risk appetite signals imminent bottom: Block Scholes

Other indicators are also suggesting an imminent bottom, such as the Block Scholes Risk Appetite Index, which measures bullish and bearish momentum in digital assets.

BTC risk appetite index and spot BTC price. Source: Block Scholes

Bitcoin’s risk appetite fell to a low of -1.27 on July 3 and has since bounced higher, which historically preceded a median spot return of 12% over the following 100 days, according to the eight prior instances identified by Block Scholes.

“Historically, such a move has preceded a more bullish outperformance in spot prices and could lead to further allocation towards risk assets such as crypto,” a spokesperson for Block Scholes told Cointelegraph. 

Magazine: Bitcoin slides to $58K, XRP hits $1 but onchain data promising: Market Moves

Richard Heathcote, who until March was Tether’s chief investment officer, is planning to sell part of his 1.26% stake in the stablecoin giant, according to a Bloomberg report.

Heathcote is working with PJT Partners to sell his holding in the San Salvador, El Salvador-based company, Bloomberg said, citing sources close to the matter. The sources said discussions with potential buyers were ongoing. They declined to comment on the company’s potential valuation.

Heathcote took on a non-executive advisory role at the issuer of USDT, the largest stablecoin by market capitalization, in March, and was replaced by his deputy Zachary Lyons.

In February, Tether scaled back from plans to raise as much as $20 billion after facing investor resistance to a proposed $500 billion valuation that would rank the stablecoin issuer among the world’s most valuable private companies. Tether advisers then followed up with plans to raise $5 billion. Tether reported a full-year profit of more than $10 billion for 2025.

Tether did not respond to a CoinDesk request for comment. PJT Partners declined to comment. Heathcote could not be reached.

Bitcoin is trading in a market that’s getting harder to define.

Hovering around $64,000 at the time of writing, Bitcoin is down by almost 50% from its cycle peak. That’s a much shallower draw down than previous cycles, but the bull run this time around did not reach the same heights.

The 2025 rally was driven by exchange-traded fund (ETF) inflows, post-halving momentum and renewed institutional demand, pushing the market to a new all-time high of more than $126,000 in October 2025.

Since then, the trend has been inexorably downward, but analysts are split on what that decline signifies.

According to Standard Chartered and other bullish institutional desks, Bitcoin may have already reached its cycle bottom last month, with structural demand from ETFs and treasury companies, and improving long-term capital flows reducing the likelihood of a deeper draw down.

Other analysts take a more cautious approach, seeing Bitcoin as likely in the final stages of its bear market but not at a confirmed bottom yet.

Bitcoin’s four-year cycles. Source: Galaxy

Galaxy Research, for example, argued in June that traditional cycle signals have not fully reset, meaning the risk of further pain cannot be ruled out.

Curiously, analysts are no longer just divided on price targets but on what a “cycle bottom” actually means in a market increasingly shaped by ETFs, macro liquidity, and shifting global capital flows.

Some analysts still see further downside ahead

At the most cautious end of the spectrum is Russell Thomson, chief investment officer at Hilbert Capital asset management firm.

Speaking to Cointelegraph, Thomson said he believes Bitcoin remains in a downcycle and is likely to break below recent lows before forming a durable base. He said that the current structure is still dominated by global macro conditions and liquidity rather than crypto-native signals.

Related: $60.4K Becomes ‘most important area’: Five things to know in Bitcoin this week

Thomson expects Bitcoin to first revisit the $56,000-$52,000 range, representing summer 2024 lows, before potentially extending losses further to between $40,000 and $45,000, an area he associates with prior consolidation phases in the early 2024 market structure.

Timing-wise, he sees Bitcoin’s broader cycle rhythm still broadly intact, with a potential low forming around October 2026, although he stressed that macro policy shifts could pull that forward.

“Fed rate cuts and/or [the CLARITY Act] passing could put the bottom in earlier than that,” he said.

He argued that institutional capital has not insulated Bitcoin from macro cycles, but rather deepened its sensitivity to global liquidity conditions, making it behave more like a “high-beta macro instrument” than a “detached crypto-native asset.”

That view is echoed by analysts at Citibank, who cut their 12-month price target for Bitcoin to $82,000 from $112,000 on July 1, highlighting how Bitcoin’s growing integration into traditional financial markets has strengthened its correlation with risk assets and macro liquidity conditions rather than reducing volatility.

Late-stage bear market, but not confirmed bottom yet

A more positive but still cautious view comes from André Dragosch, head of research (Europe) at Bitwise.

Dragosch told Cointelegraph that the current environment resembles a “late-stage bear market,” arguing that multiple indicators already suggest downside exhaustion.

He noted that sentiment has deteriorated to levels last seen after the collapse of FTX in 2022, a period typically associated with seller fatigue.

Dragosch also does not believe the cycle low has been confirmed. “I don’t think that we have seen the final bottom just yet, although we are probably very close,” he said, emphasizing that no single indicator can reliably identify a cycle bottom.

Related: Dormant $1.9M Bitcoin tied to New York lawsuit moves after nearly 15 years

He also highlighted the structural shift in the market, pointing to the rise of ETFs and institutional participation, which have increased off-chain trading and reduced the reliability of some historical cycle indicators.

Despite this uncertainty, he said downside risks appear increasingly limited at current levels, adding that Bitcoin could begin outperforming artificial intelligence equities over the coming months if macro conditions stabilize.

Bitcoin price and its cycle bottoms. Source: Galaxy

In Galaxy’s base-case scenario, the firm pointed to a potential slide to between $40,000 and $46,000, depending on how liquidity and macro conditions evolve.

‘When will Bitcoin bottom?’ could be the wrong question

A more structural interpretation comes from Dean Chen, an analyst at Bitunix Exchange.

Chen told Cointelegraph that Bitcoin is still in a decline, but one increasingly defined by global liquidity competition rather than internal crypto market structure.

“I believe Bitcoin remains in a down cycle, although it has entered a relatively stable valuation range supported by the structural capital base created after the approval of US spot Bitcoin ETFs in 2024,” Chen said.

While ETFs have created a more persistent institutional bid, Chen argued that Bitcoin is now competing directly with other major global capital narratives, particularly artificial intelligence and equity markets, for marginal liquidity.

Related: Tim Draper says Arkham got Bitcoin wallet attribution ‘wrong’

“The bigger challenge isn’t Bitcoin itself; it’s the competition for global liquidity,” he said. “Capital continues to flow toward AI infrastructure, equities, and other high-growth opportunities.”

In his view, this changes how cycle analysis should be understood altogether.

“The wrong question is ‘when will Bitcoin bottom?’” Chen said. “The more important question is: ‘when will crypto once again become the most attractive destination for global risk capital?’”

He noted that derivatives markets now play a significantly larger role in price discovery than in previous cycles, with funding rates and open interest increasingly driving short-term volatility.

That means Bitcoin may not form a sharp V-shaped bottom at all, he said, but instead spend an extended period building a structural base.

A Bitcoin cycle that no longer looks like previous cycles

Beyond price targets, what emerges from these competing views is a deeper disagreement over how Bitcoin’s cycle structure should even be defined.

Thompson sees Bitcoin as still firmly inside a macro-driven down cycle, where liquidity conditions have not yet fully turned.

Dragosch sees a late-stage bear market where exhaustion signals are already visible, even if confirmation is still pending.

Chen argues that Bitcoin is now competing directly with global capital allocation themes such as AI and equities, making traditional bottom-calling frameworks increasingly incomplete.

In this cycle, it seems, the debate is not just about where Bitcoin bottoms but whether a “bottom” is still a single moment at all.

Magazine: Bitcoin will not hit $1M by 2030, says veteran trader Peter Brandt

Cardano wallet firm SecondFi says it will not resume “normal operations” and will instead focus solely on “returning assets to affected users” as it continues to grapple with last month’s $2.4 million ADA exploit.

Developer Emurgo, claimed yesterday that “SecondFi will not resume normal operations, even once the audits are complete.”

It added, “Going forward, our involvement in SecondFi is limited to a dedicated asset recovery team, tasked solely with returning assets to affected users.”

The firm has yet to release an audit of what took place during the exploit, which saw 16 million ADA ($2.4 million) stolen by bad actors, and 129 million ADA ($18.5 million) taken by a mysterious white hat hacker. 

Emurgo is also yet to launch a recovery plan for affected users and is still in the process of arranging one.  

Japanese companies are turning to bitcoin and XRP as a weak yen pushes them to diversify their corporate treasuries, according to SBI VC Trade, as the crypto exchange’s registered accounts passed 2 million.

The crypto arm of financial group Tokyo-based SBI Holdings said use of its corporate service, SBIVC for Prime, has grown as the weak yen drives firms to spread reserves beyond cash, with added demand from companies that hand out bitcoin or XRP through shareholder-perk programs.

It reported the account milestone on Tuesday, roughly double the 1 million it counted in 2025.

The 2 million figure combines its VCTRADE and BITPOINT services and follows SBI VC Trade’s April 2026 merger with sister firm BitPoint Japan. The company plans to fully integrate the two brands around the end of December, which it said should cut costs and unify service levels.

Vitalik Buterin has confirmed that AI-assisted analysis used by Co-Invest CEO Franklyn Wang correctly identified his anonymous contribution to an Ethereum proposal.

The identification comes two weeks after Buterin publicly challenged whether current AI tools could pierce online anonymity.

Wang’s winning submission identified an anonymous rewrite of EIP-7503 by analyzing the way it explained mathematical and technical concepts.

“The doc was an anonymous EIP-7503 rewrite he’d hidden by writing it in Chinese and machine-translating it,” Wang wrote in a Monday X post after Buterin confirmed the result. “The tell wasn’t his words, it was his reasoning.”

Vitalik Buterin’s June 22 post challenging viewers to discover his anonymous writing. Source: Vitalik Buterin

Some of the crypto industry’s most prominent contributors, including Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto, have relied on pseudonyms to conceal their identities. Some analysts believe that if AI can reliably identify authors from their reasoning patterns, that would make anonymous technical contributions harder to sustain across open-source blockchain communities.

Related: AI agent development hasn’t accelerated as expected, Zuckerberg says

Buterin tests AI deanonymization

In a February paper, researchers from ETH Zurich and Anthropic claimed large language models have made online deanonymization practical at scale. 

The study found AI could identify pseudonymous online users by extracting identity-related information from unstructured text, searching for potential matches and reasoning over the most likely candidates, outperforming traditional deanonymization techniques.

“There have recently been claims that AI text analysis will make online anonymity untenable. So let me cannibalize a piece of my own anonymity to do an experiment,” Buterin said on June 22.

He confessed to publishing a document of “medium importance” to Ethereum at some point in the past decade under a different name.

“Find it,” he challenged.

Related: Yield Guild Games cuts 35 staff, shuts game publisher to focus on AI

Wang said that Co-Invest ranked Buterin as the most likely author of an anonymous December 2024 rewrite of EIP-7503, with roughly 20% confidence, which was about 10 times higher than the next candidate in its analysis of 27 documents.

Buterin later revealed he had written the anonymous rewrite in Chinese, translated it into English using Qwen 2.5 and manually corrected the translation in an attempt to disguise his prose.

“Notice that the stylistic hints that his AI picked up on were intellectual habits and style of math and algorithm explanation, which bypassed my obfuscation strategy (which only covered prose) completely,” Buterin wrote.

Lighter CEO Vladimir Novakovski said Monday he worked with Wang in a 2023 project using GPT-4 to try to identify Bitcoin creator Nakamoto by matching writing style in cryptography research, but said the effort failed to produce a high-confidence result.

According to Novakovski, Wang later applied a similar approach to Buterin’s anonymity challenge.

Magazine: Bitcoin slides to $58K, XRP hits $1 but onchain data promising: Market Moves