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Ripple CEO backs AI as revenue set to double in 2026
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said on Aug. 20 that the company is aggressively adopting artificial intelligence as it pursues further revenue and workforce growth.
Summary
- Garlinghouse said Ripple has adopted artificial intelligence aggressively to accelerate growth across its expanding business.
- Ripple employs about 1,500 people globally and plans continued hiring as revenue grows further worldwide.
- Garlinghouse expects Ripple to more than double annual revenue during 2026, despite continuing market weakness.
- Ripple currently lists 94 roles publicly, including engineering positions focused on AI driven operations worldwide.
- Ripple Prime clears more than $3 trillion annually for over 300 institutional customers across markets.
Speaking at the SALT Wyoming Blockchain Symposium, Garlinghouse described AI as an “enabler and an accelerant” for companies that already have growing businesses and customer demand.
“AI, if you are in a business that has opportunity to grow and you’re serving customers and have compelling solutions, AI just lets you do that better and faster and stronger,” Garlinghouse said during the recorded interview.
He added that Ripple has approximately 1,500 employees worldwide and 150 open positions. Garlinghouse said the company intends to keep expanding because its business is growing.
Ripple sees AI as an expansion tool
Garlinghouse rejected the argument that AI is necessarily responsible for large corporate layoffs. He suggested that some companies may be using the technology to justify workforce reductions that were already needed.
“When I see companies announce big layoffs and they say, ‘Oh, well, AI X, Y, and Z,’ that to me says, ‘Well, they were bloated before and they’re using this as an excuse,’” he said.
His comments represent an opinion about recent layoffs rather than evidence about individual companies. Businesses have attributed workforce reductions to several factors, including automation, restructuring, operating costs and changes in customer demand.
Ripple’s public careers portal displayed 94 available positions when reviewed. The difference from Garlinghouse’s figure may reflect roles that have not been posted publicly, positions under recruitment through other channels or changes since the conference appearance.
Some listings directly connect Ripple’s engineering strategy with AI. One senior engineering role calls for an “AI native operation” using agentic development methods to expand the company’s payout network without relying entirely on traditional headcount growth.
Institutional expansion supports Ripple’s growth claim
Garlinghouse said Ripple expects a record year and will “more than double revenue year on year.” Ripple is privately held and does not publish the audited quarterly financial statements required of public companies. The revenue projection therefore remains company guidance.
The company has expanded beyond its original cross border payments business through acquisitions and new institutional services. Ripple completed its $1.25 billion purchase of Hidden Road in October 2025 and renamed the business Ripple Prime.
As previously reported, the acquisition expanded Ripple into global prime brokerage services covering digital assets and traditional markets. Ripple says the division clears more than $3 trillion annually for over 300 institutional customers.
Ripple previously said the prime brokerage business had tripled in size between the acquisition announcement and its completion. That figure is a company supplied measure and has not been independently audited through public financial filings.
The company has also expanded into corporate treasury management. In related coverage, Ripple introduced an enterprise platform for managing digital assets and liquidity following its acquisition of treasury software provider GTreasury.
Ripple’s AI strategy targets financial infrastructure
Garlinghouse connected the company’s outlook with its longstanding focus on financial infrastructure. Ripple sells payment, custody, stablecoin, prime brokerage and treasury services to institutions.
“More and more people are realizing that the infrastructure side, the institutional side is where it’s at,” he said. He described Ripple’s role as connecting traditional finance with decentralized financial infrastructure.
Ripple President Monica Long made a similar case in the company’s 2026 predictions. She said AI models could work alongside blockchains to automate liquidity management, margin calls and portfolio rebalancing.
The strategy does not mean Ripple will replace employees with autonomous systems. Its current position is that AI can increase the output of existing teams while helping the company serve more customers and enter additional markets.
The next measurable tests will be Ripple’s hiring activity and whether it reaches Garlinghouse’s revenue target. Any public listing could eventually provide independently audited financial information, but the company has not announced a confirmed timetable for an initial public offering.
Ripple’s commercial growth also should not be treated as automatic growth for XRP. Ripple is a private company, while XRP is a separate digital asset. As crypto.news previously explained, many Ripple services can grow without creating direct demand for XRP.
Kalshi daily crypto perpetual-futures open interest reached a record $17.98 million. The reading puts attention on Kalshi’s CFTC-regulated perpetual futures, which allow traders to take leveraged positions on crypto prices without buying the underlying assets.
Perpetual futures, or perps, are derivative contracts that let traders take a position on an asset’s price without owning the asset itself. A trader can take a long position when expecting a price rise or a short position when expecting a decline. Unlike traditional futures, perpetual futures do not have an expiration date, although positions require sufficient collateral to remain open.
Kalshi’s perpetual-futures guide says the company became the first in U.S. history to offer CFTC-regulated perpetual futures on May 29, 2026. The guide describes crypto perpetual futures as a way to trade price movements in assets, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and XRP, without crypto changing hands.
Leverage allows collateral to control a larger position, amplifying both potential gains and potential losses. A price move against a leveraged position can lead to liquidation if losses consume the required collateral. Kalshi’s guide also says its contracts use a funding rate charged every eight hours, a mechanism intended to keep perpetual-futures prices aligned with the underlying spot market.
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Perpetual Futures and Prediction Markets Are Different Products
Kalshi offers both perpetual futures and prediction markets, but the products serve different purposes. A perpetual future is a directional position on the price of an asset with no fixed end date. A prediction-market contract concerns the probability of a specified event and resolves YES or NO on a specified date.
The distinction is important when assessing activity on the platform. The reported $17.98 million figure concerns crypto perpetual-futures open interest, rather than prediction-market activity. It should not be treated as a measure of event-contract trading.
Perpetual futures can be used for either rising or falling price views. They also carry risks that differ from spot crypto purchases: traders do not own the underlying token, face funding costs and may have positions liquidated if market moves exhaust their collateral.
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Kalshi Crypto Perpetual-Futures Offering
As of June 3, 2026, Kalshi’s guide listed 13 CFTC-approved crypto perpetual-futures contracts. The guide listed maximum leverage of 5.9x for Bitcoin, 4.5x for Ethereum, and 2.0x for Shiba Inu, alongside contracts tied to other crypto assets.
Kalshi describes an isolated margin as an arrangement in which the collateral assigned to a specific trade is at risk if that trade is liquidated. Its guide contrasts this with cross margin, where an account balance can back open positions. The same guide says funding payments occur every eight hours.
These features make the record open-interest report a measure of activity in a product designed for leveraged crypto price exposure under CFTC oversight.
Kalshi’s reported record remains small beside major crypto perpetual-futures venues. Comparing Kalshi with Hyperliquid, which had $11.7 billion in daily open interest across 377 pairs. The comparison underscores the difference in scale between Kalshi’s crypto perpetual-futures activity and a large established market for perpetual contracts.
Kalshi’s guide frames its offering around regulated access to perpetual futures in the United States. Its contracts combine leverage, periodic funding payments, and liquidation risk with CFTC oversight. For traders, that means the product remains distinct from both spot crypto ownership and the platform’s event-based prediction markets.
Discover: The Best Crypto to Diversify Your Portfolio
Record Open Interest Suggests Traders Are Already Testing Kalshi’s New Crypto Market
Kalshi no longer needs to explain whether U.S. traders want regulated access to crypto perpetuals. The $17.98 million open-interest record is beginning to answer that question for it.
For traders, the appeal is straightforward: take long or short positions on major crypto assets, use leverage where appropriate, and do it through a CFTC-regulated platform without buying the underlying tokens.
That puts Kalshi in an unusual position. The same platform already lets users trade event outcomes, while its perpetual-futures market now adds direct exposure to crypto price moves. One account can express a view on what happens and, separately, where the market goes next.
The market is still far smaller than offshore giants such as Hyperliquid, but record activity suggests traders are starting to explore the regulated alternative.
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The post Kalshi’s Crypto Perpetual Futures Reach $17.98 Million Open Interest appeared first on Cryptonews.
Tether’s planned Bitcoin mining expansion in Uruguay has collapsed after an electricity supply dispute with state utility UTE left two facilities without enough power, ending a project estimated to have cost around $120 million.
Summary
- Tether invested an estimated $120 million across two Bitcoin mining sites in Uruguay’s Florida department.
- A dispute with state utility UTE over electricity allocations left the facilities without enough power to operate consistently.
- UTE disconnected the mining sites in July 2025 after contract negotiations failed and electricity bills went unpaid.
- Tether has continued investing in Bitcoin mining elsewhere, including renewable energy projects in Brazil and mining infrastructure.
Reuters has reported that Tether abandoned two mining sites in Uruguay’s Florida department after disagreements over electricity allocations disrupted operations and eventually led its local entity, Microfin, to terminate contracts with UTE.
The project had been presented in 2023 as Tether’s first major Bitcoin mining venture in South America, with Uruguay serving as a testing ground before potential expansion into Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina. A former contractor told Reuters that Tether spent roughly $60 million on each of the two sites.
Tether did not disclose an investment figure when it announced the Uruguay operation in May 2023, describing the country as the “perfect platform” because of its renewable energy supply and reliable electricity grid.
By late 2025, however, crypto.news reported that the company had informed Uruguay’s labor authorities that it would cease local operations and had laid off 30 of its 38 employees. More than $100 million had already been spent at the time, while another $50 million had been earmarked for infrastructure that was expected to pass to UTE and Uruguay’s National Interconnected System.
Tether Bitcoin mining plans ran into an electricity supply dispute
At the core of the failed project was a disagreement over how much power Microfin could draw from UTE, according to two former Tether contractors and a source at the state utility cited by Reuters.
Tether understood a provision in its electricity contract as setting a minimum power allocation that could later be increased, one former contractor said. UTE interpreted the same amount as the maximum level available under the agreement.
As demand at the mining facilities increased, the difference became critical. One former contractor told Reuters that the sites sometimes lacked enough electricity to operate for days at a time.
UTE sources also said the dispute concerned the electricity allocation available to Microfin, which operated locally on Tether’s behalf.
An internal UTE briefing reviewed by Reuters showed that the disagreement was already underway by November 2024. Tether and Microfin did not respond to the news agency’s requests for comment about the contract.
Political changes later complicated negotiations, according to people familiar with the discussions. Uruguay’s new left-leaning government took office in March 2025 and appointed new directors at UTE, after which the utility adopted a firmer position on renegotiating the electricity agreement, one former contractor told Reuters.
Two months later, Microfin stopped paying electricity bills. The company informed UTE in June 2025 that it intended to terminate its contracts, according to the utility’s internal briefing.
The two sides still attempted to preserve the project. UTE’s board approved a memorandum of understanding and revised contract documents, but Tether representatives did not attend the scheduled signing, minutes included in the briefing showed.
With the agreement unsigned and bills outstanding, UTE disconnected electricity to the facilities on July 25. Earlier reporting put the unpaid balance connected to the two sites at roughly $5 million.
Microfin eventually settled the outstanding debt in December, UTE told Reuters.
Uruguay was intended as the first step into South America
Tether had initially viewed Uruguay as an entry point for a much larger regional mining operation, according to a former contractor who worked with the company.
The country offered political stability, established infrastructure and an electricity system powered heavily by renewable sources, while the Florida facilities allowed the company to test its mining model before committing more capital elsewhere.
Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino and chairman Giancarlo Devasini have also been frequent visitors to the coastal resort of Punta del Este, industry sources told Reuters. The city has attracted wealthy foreign residents and technology investors, including billionaire Peter Thiel, who is building a reported $10 million residential compound nearby.
Early operations at Tether’s facilities generated revenue and were initially well managed, according to two former contractors. A February 2024 company video showed rows of mining buildings surrounded by farmland and wind turbines, with internal roads carrying crypto-themed names including “Memepool Avenue” and “Halving Street.”
The Uruguay exit has not ended Tether’s mining activity elsewhere in the region. In July 2025, the company signed a mining agreement with Latin American agricultural producer Adecoagro to use renewable electricity for Bitcoin mining in Brazil.
Adecoagro had more than 230 megawatts of renewable generation capacity at the time and planned to use mining to monetize surplus electricity. Its CEO Mariano Bosch said the arrangement could help secure pricing for energy normally sold on the spot market while giving the company exposure to Bitcoin.
Ardoino said at the time that the Brazil project formed part of Tether’s commitment to renewable-powered mining.
Tether keeps investing in Bitcoin mining infrastructure
Mining remains part of Tether’s investment strategy despite the Uruguay withdrawal.
Ardoino said at an industry conference last year that the company had invested more than $2 billion in energy production and Bitcoin mining, according to Reuters.
Tether has also put capital into mining-related companies. In June, it sold 627,000 shares in Bitdeer for about $12.7 million but retained a 19.7% stake in the Bitcoin mining and AI infrastructure firm. The shares were sold at roughly $20 each.
Its involvement now extends to the software used to run mining operations. Tether released MiningOS as open-source software in February 2026, giving operators a system designed to manage installations ranging from small home setups to large industrial sites.
The company followed that release with an open-source Mining Development Kit in April, providing developers with tools for controlling and automating mining hardware through a common software framework.
Those investments are funded partly through profits generated by Tether’s stablecoin business. The company controls about $183 billion worth of stablecoins, Reuters reported, while assets backing its tokens have made it one of the world’s largest holders of U.S. government debt.
Tether reported $1.04 billion in net profit for the first quarter of 2026, with total assets of $191.77 billion and liabilities of $183.54 billion, according to its quarterly attestation. Its exposure to U.S. Treasuries stood at about $141 billion.
Profits from the stablecoin operation have also been deployed into data centers, video platform Rumble, brain-computer interface businesses and Italy’s Juventus football club, Reuters reported.
Bitcoin mining economics have pushed operators toward AI
The Uruguay shutdown has occurred during a difficult period for Bitcoin miners, whose revenue was hit by the April 2024 halving and later pressure on Bitcoin prices.
The halving cut the block subsidy paid to miners in half, forcing operators to rely on more efficient machines, cheaper electricity, or alternative uses for their power and data center infrastructure.
By mid-2026, hashprice, a measure of miner revenue generated per unit of computing power, had fallen into the high-$20 range per petahash per day, while older machines faced estimated breakeven levels of about $35, according to research on miner finances published in July. Public mining companies sold more than 32,000 BTC during the first quarter of 2026 as financial pressure increased.
Some operators have increasingly allocated power and facilities to artificial intelligence and high-performance computing. A June analysis found that public Bitcoin miners had secured more than $70 billion in AI and HPC contracts, while a tracked basket of mining shares had risen more than 50% in 2026 despite Bitcoin falling about 17% over the measured period.
Tanay Ved, senior research analyst at Talos, told Reuters that miners have responded to tighter economics by buying more efficient hardware, finding cheaper sources of electricity or redirecting computing infrastructure toward AI and high-performance workloads.
Mining specialist Nicolas Ribeiro said Uruguay’s reliable grid and internet connectivity could make the country better suited to AI data centers, while relatively expensive electricity weakens the economics of Bitcoin mining.
“Uruguay isn’t viable for mining — that’s the reality,” Ribeiro said.
Bitcoin is on a roll, as we might have mentioned a few times in the past couple of days. But let’s recap quickly: BTC traded below $65,000 for weeks when all hell broke loose on Wednesday afternoon. Since then, the asset has skyrocketed by 25% and neared $80,000 earlier today for the first time in three months.
The obvious question on everyone’s mind is: Who is responsible for this spectacular rally? What’s the reason behind it? Well, after reviewing tons of online material, we have finally reached a definitive conclusion.
Did He Do It Again?
Analysts, experts, market commentators, media websites, and our mothers: we have all speculated in the past 60 hours on what could be the driving force behind this mind-blowing surge to $80,000.
And our conclusion shows clearly: It’s not the US Treasury Department’s announcement, it’s not the major White House crypto meeting, it’s not Trump’s words that the US has to lead in crypto and might accumulate BTC, it’s not the renewed ETF inflows, it’s not the de-escalating war developments. None of those have the impact that the actual reason has. And that reason has a name: Jim Cramer.
Let’s rewind the clocks a few weeks. The man himself interviewed IBM CEO Arvind Krishna about the potential quantum threat and, after hearing Krishna’s argument, announced on national TV that he would sell his bitcoin.
“Arvind Krishna knows Bitcoin and quantum. And I am going to sell mine [Bitcoin].”
On the question of whether that was a sufficient reason to dispose of his crypto assets, Cramer justified his decision by explaining that IBM’s CEO is “the man” when it comes to quantum.
Examples
I mean, how much clearer than that could it have been? The signs were all there. We were just too blind to listen and follow through. Cramer has all the right history, showing that whatever he says is the absolute truth, whether we know it or not yet. Oh, wait, it was the other way around.
Just a few examples: he created a PARC basket in July 2025 as a solid portfolio and added Coinbase (COIN) to it. A year later, COIN was down by over 60%. In late 2022, just after BTC had tumbled below $17,000, he advised investors to sell all of their crypto holdings. He said XRP, DOGE, ADA, and MATIC were going to zero. Needless to say, that was the end of the bear market at the time. Oh, and none of those went to $0.
He has been so on-point with his major predictions that it has led to the creation of an “Inverse Cramer” X account that bets against all of his calls. That account has more than 1.4 million followers on X due to its success.
Disclaimer: Obviously, this was a humorous article. The actual (possible) reasons are listed above. But the reality is that something has changed in the market. Trading volumes are 3x higher than this time last week, prices have rocketed, and legacy traditional media is back to covering crypto. Hopefully, more good times are ahead. Unless Cramer buys more BTC and announces it on national TV, of course.
The post The Real Reason Behind Bitcoin’s Mind-Blowing Surge to $80K? One Word: Cramer appeared first on CryptoPotato.
Coinkite released a new security upgrade to strengthen seed phrase generation by requiring user-supplied entropy mixed with improved device randomness.
Coinkite announced firmware 5.6.1 for Coldcard Mk4 and Mk5 devices and 1.5.1Q for the Coldcard Q in a Thursday blog post.
The release requires newly generated seeds to include user-supplied entropy through at least 65 keypresses with unpredictable timing, 50 rolls of a six-sided die or 128 coin flips. That input is combined with randomness from multiple device sources, including its secure elements and hardware random-number generator (RNG).
The combined randomness is used to create the wallet’s seed phrase and is intended to keep its private keys unpredictable even if one of the device’s entropy sources fails.
Coinkite told users to upgrade immediately, emphasizing that existing seed phrases remain vulnerable even after upgrading and must be replaced with new seeds before migrating funds.
Confirmed losses from the Coldcard exploit reached 1,778 Bitcoin (BTC), worth about $112 million, according to an Aug. 14 report by Galaxy Research. This makes the Coldcard hack the third-largest cryptocurrency exploit of 2026, according to data aggregated by DefiLlama.
Coldcard adds transaction and USB safeguards
The company’s July 31 firmware update had already fixed the seed-generation failure for newly created wallets. Thursday’s release follows three weeks of broader security review and also adds safeguards around USB data handling, transaction signing and hardware randomness.
Coinkite said the update addresses a theoretical attack involving a compromised computer USB port by re-verifying transactions immediately before signing. The firmware also introduces additional hardware RNG checks and a boot-time test designed to verify that the wallet is using its intended hardware path.
Related: Cybersecurity firm unveils crypto phishing campaign targeting 885,000 phone numbers
Other changes restrict USB downloads to the device’s most recent output and require an encrypted session, while certain Bitcoin signature hash modes that allow transaction outputs to remain modifiable are now blocked by default.
Coinspect launches weak-seed detection tool
Other companies are also launching software to identify wallets potentially exposed by weak seed generation.
Blockchain security company Coinspect revealed Unlukey, a free public tool for identifying wallet addresses generated from weak seed phrases. The first iteration of the tool aims to reproduce known weak seed generation and check whether public addresses belong to the affected dataset, Coinspect said in a Friday X post.
Weak seed phrase generation was one of the main vulnerabilities that led to the Coldcard exploit. TRM Labs said that a firmware bug from March 2021 weakened seed randomness on some Coldcard wallets, reducing key strength from 128 bits to 40 bits and making them “brute-forceable without physical access.”
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Spot Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded funds (ETFs) recorded $606.29 million in net inflows on August 20, marking a fourth consecutive day of inflows. The total is the largest single-day haul the funds have seen since May 1.
Spot Ethereum (ETH) ETFs added $221 million the same day, also extending a four-day inflow streak. The dual demand landed as bitcoin traded at $75,524, continuing a market-wide rally that has run through the week.
Bitcoin ETFs Extend a Four-Day Run
Thursday’s inflow followed $517.19 million on August 19, $189.30 million on August 18, and $297.56 million on August 17. Combined, the four-day run has pushed cumulative net inflows for the category to $53.40 billion.
The last time Bitcoin ETFs booked a bigger single day was May 1. That day, the funds pulled in $629.73 million, and total net assets crossed $100 billion for the first time.
BlackRock’s IBIT led the day’s inflows with $502.99 million, more than 80% of the day’s total. The broader crypto market rally that has lifted Bitcoin this week has coincided with a wave of short liquidations squeezing bearish positions across the market.
Ethereum Demand Builds Alongside Bitcoin
Ethereum ETFs have moved in step with their Bitcoin counterparts. The category booked $189.15 million on August 19, its largest single-day inflow in 10 months, before adding a further $221 million on August 20.
The simultaneous four-day streaks in both categories suggest institutions are building positions across both assets rather than rotating between them. Total value traded across Bitcoin ETFs reached $5.41 billion on August 20, and total net assets stood at $90.16 billion.
Whether the pace holds into next week may depend on the rally itself. Four straight days of buying could give way to profit-taking if momentum stalls.
The post Bitcoin ETFs Post $606 Million Inflow, Biggest Since May 1 appeared first on BeInCrypto.
Ethereum is back in the spotlight after U.S. spot Ethereum ETF pulled more than $220 million in fresh capital on August 20. The funds recorded more $219 million in net inflows, extending their winning streak to four consecutive trading days. BlackRock’s ETHA once again dominated the session with about $173 million in inflows.
That puts the August 20 flow above the $189.15 million recorded one day earlier. The back to back inflows suggest institutional demand has not slowed after Ethereum’s sharp recovery.
ETH is also surging above the $2,300 level. CoinGecko data shows Ethereum trading around the $2,360 area in recent market data, with its market cap remaining above $270 billion.
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BlackRock Ethereum ETF Is Doing the Heavy Lifting
BlackRock’s ETHA accounted for roughly $173 million of the August 20 inflows. That was followed by BlackRock’s ETHB with about $35.9 million, while Fidelity’s FETH added $5.8 million.
Bitwise’s ETHW brought in around $2.8 million. VanEck’s ETHV added another $1.7 million. The remaining products recorded either smaller flows or no meaningful change during the session.
Biggest ETF Day Since May, BTC Back Above $70K — CoinMarketCap (@CoinMarketCap) August 20, 2026
Aug 19 BTC & ETH ETF Net Flows: +$684.4M
Three straight inflow days, +$1.08B combined. BTC now trades
at $71,653, up 9.7% in 24 hours and back above $70K for the
first time since early June.
BTC: +$507.3M
IBIT (BlackRock):… pic.twitter.com/UOBwN2349T
The result is important because it came immediately after the $189 million inflow recorded on August 19. That earlier session had already been described as Ethereum’s strongest single day since October 2025.
As of now, August is shaping up as a major turnaround for Ethereum ETF. The funds had struggled through May and June, when combined net outflows exceeded $1 billion.
The money is moving in the opposite direction. Ethereum ETFs have posted several consecutive positive sessions while ETH has reclaimed levels that looked out of reach during the recent weakness.
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ETH Price Has Another Catalyst
Ethereum price action is giving the ETF numbers even more weight as it jumped sharply during the recent move, reaching above $2,300 and briefly trading near $2,400.
The token’s recovery also came with a sharp improvement in sentiment. Ethereum is now testing whether the $2,300 area can turn into support rather than another temporary stop. That matters because ETF demand is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. Four straight days of inflows means institutions are adding exposure while ETH is already trading significantly above its recent lows.
There is another supply signal worth watching. Santiment data previously showed exchange held ETH falling from roughly 7.70 million coins on June 2 to 6.54 million on August 18. That represents a decline of around 15% over 11 weeks.
Fewer ETH sitting on exchanges can reduce immediately available selling supply. Combined with stronger ETF demand, that creates an interesting setup if buying pressure continues.
The big question now is whether Ethereum can turn this ETF momentum into a sustained breakout as the $2,400 area is the next obvious test. If ETH clears it decisively while ETF inflows remain strong, the market could start looking toward the next major resistance levels.
For now, the message from Wall Street is getting louder: institutions are buying the dip, and Ethereum is listening.
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The post Ethereum ETF Pulls $221M as ETH Eyes Another Breakout appeared first on Cryptonews.
Laser Digital Japan will offer liquidity to domestic crypto providers, with institutional trading services planned to follow as the appetite for crypto in Japan grows.
Japan’s headline inflation rate reached 1.9% in July, its highest level this year, as the Iran conflict pushed energy costs higher and the yen drifted back toward 159 per dollar.
Both readings now point the Bank of Japan toward the same decision in September, when its board next meets to set the policy rate.
Energy Costs Lift Japan’s Inflation to a 2026 High
Core inflation, which excludes fresh food but keeps energy, matched forecasts at 1.8%. The so-called core-core rate, stripping out both, came in at 1.9%.
Energy prices climbed for the first time since November 2025 despite government support. That fed into wholesale inflation, which reached 7.2% in July.
Electricity charges were the largest contributor. Fresh food prices climbed 7%, a sharp acceleration from the 3.9% increase recorded in June.
Analysts have said subsidies from Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s administration are holding down consumer prices. The measures shield households from energy costs.
Meanwhile, the BOJ warned last month that core inflation would clearly move above 2% starting in the second half of its 2026 fiscal year, which runs from September to March. It cited wage increases feeding into selling prices, higher crude oil prices, and the recent depreciation of the yen.
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Intervention Gave Carry Traders a Cheaper Entry
The joint US-Japan operation lifted the yen from roughly 164 per dollar to about 155 per dollar. Most of that move has since unwound, even though Japan’s intervention firepower remains substantial.
Nonetheless, Japanese investors treated the stronger yen as an opportunity to double down on the carry trade. They net bought more than 5 trillion yen of foreign equities and long-term bonds in the two weeks to August 15, reversing net sales of more than 300 billion yen.
“Intervention has ‘turbo charged’ the carry trade for fundamental & long-term investors,” Jesper Koll, expert director at Monex Group, told CNBC.
The US-Japan 10-year yield spread stood near 1.8 percentage points on August 20. The wide gap continues to support the carry trade by preserving the incentive to fund investments in higher-yielding overseas assets with relatively low-yielding yen.
That dynamic is unlikely to change materially unless the Bank of Japan raises rates enough to narrow the yield differential.
Both Pressures Point the BOJ the Same Way
This leaves the BOJ facing pressure from two directions at once. July’s inflation print argues for tightening, and so does a currency the market keeps selling back down.
Traders have already moved. Polymarket now assigns 84% odds to a 25-basis-point increase at the September 17-18 meeting, against 15% for no change. Those odds sat near 21% earlier.
The BOJ lifted its policy rate to 1% in June, the highest level since 1995. Whether one more quarter-point move does anything to a 1.8 point yield gap is the question September leaves open.
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The post Japan’s Inflation Print Just Made a September BOJ Hike Harder to Avoid appeared first on BeInCrypto.
BTC has gained 24% since Monday and reached the level implied by its inverse head-and-shoulders break, with shorts still taking a contrarian position.
Bitcoin Infinity Day arrives on Friday, August 21, and the ritual comes with one rule. Holders either buy Bitcoin or sit on their hands, because the day forbids selling.
The date hides a code. Rotate the 8, and it becomes the infinity symbol, while 21 points at Bitcoin’s fixed cap of 21 million coins.
How Bitcoin Infinity Day Started
Swedish author Knut Svanholm floated the idea on August 10, 2021. He framed it as a coordinated pause in selling, and the hashtag spread across X within days.
Svanholm built his work around one line of arithmetic, everything divided by 21 million. Put every asset on Earth over a fixed denominator, and the answer carries no ceiling.
That thought produced the ∞ / 21M symbol, which he still keeps in his display name. In practice, the rules stay simple. Buy any amount, or do nothing at all. Sellers get no exemption, not for rent money, not for profit taking.
Five years on, the day has become a fixture on the Bitcoin calendar. The community reposts the infinity tag every August, so the ritual now outlives the tweet that started it.
The argument rests on scarcity. Value can climb toward infinity because the supply schedule never bends, however the coin count stays frozen at 21 million. Adam Back rejected a push to lift Bitcoin’s supply cap earlier this month, calling the case a false narrative.
HODL Rules Meet a Market That Just Flipped to Greed
This year, the timing looks kinder. Bitcoin trades near $75,360 after a 8.37% daily jump, and its market value has climbed back above $1.51 trillion.
Sentiment turned with it. The Crypto Fear and Greed Index flipped fear into greed overnight on Thursday, climbing from 46 to 62.
Short sellers paid for the swing. Exchanges wiped out short positions worth roughly $1.06 billion in a single day, and the squeeze then fed on itself.
Even so, the record stays distant. Bitcoin peaked at $126,080 on October 6, 2025, so the price still sits about 40% lower.
Scarcity talk survived that drawdown. Binance founder Changpeng Zhao warned last week that millionaires soon cannot afford one full Bitcoin. Dormant and lost coins, he argued, keep shrinking the tradable float.
Conversion stories still surface as well. Entrepreneur Jeff Booth spent 15,000 hours of research at breaking Bitcoin, never managed it, and changed how he invests.
Supporters argue that a synchronized bid, however small, shows the market what fixed supply looks like when demand refuses to blink. Critics counter that one Friday of restraint barely registers against global spot volume.
Nobody has proven that a single coordinated day moves the price. Still, the ritual hands holders a shared script, and this year the market shows up in a better mood.
The post What Is Bitcoin Infinity Day? The 8/21 Ritual That Bans Selling for a Day appeared first on BeInCrypto.
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