Banking giant UBS, with over $7 trillion in assets under management, has reported a more than 24-fold quarterly increase in call option exposure tied to BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) in the second quarter.

That increase, which gives it the right to acquire IBIT shares at a later date at a set price, came as its outright IBIT holdings rose about 12%, according to a regulatory filing this week.

The Swiss banking group reported calls representing 1.95 million underlying IBIT shares as of June 30, up from 80,000 three months earlier. UBS separately held 407,890 IBIT shares worth about $13.6 million, compared with 364,371 shares at the end of the first quarter, according to its Q1 filing.

Put option exposure, giving UBS the right but not the obligation to sell IBIT at a set date and price, moved in the opposite direction. UBS reported puts representing 143,300 underlying shares, down about 53% from 303,300 at the end of March.

Its direct IBIT position also remained below the 548,614 shares reported at the end of 2025, according to its fourth-quarter filing.

The disclosure also does not include strike prices or expirations, making it difficult to determine UBS’s net directional exposure from the filing alone.

The contracts traded just 1.6% apart on average when both markets were active, and traded near $92 and $94 most recently, translating to a more than 300% upside from the IPO price.

That fourfold premium also means Unitree could have a blockbuster debut and still leave leveraged bulls nursing steep losses.

“Unitree can open at twice its IPO price and still liquidate a third of long exposure,” Allium said.

An opening around $45, double the IPO price, would still be about 52% below the current perp price and could liquidate roughly 33% of long exposure, the analysts said. At the other extreme, a $128 opening price (nearly 6x from the IPO price) could liquidate an estimated 53% of the short positions, the report said. If shares open at around where the perps trade, nothing moves, and neither side is liquidated.

Positioning on Trade.xyz, the bigger market of the two, is almost evenly split, with $6.5 million long and $6.6 million short. However, smaller traders are more bearish: bets below $50,000 are 70% short by value.

“Any open away from today’s price forces one side of this market out,” Allium said.

Read more: Hyperliquid is taking crypto perps deep into DeFi’s ‘money LEGO’ land

Crypto mining was banned in Moscow, the surrounding Moscow Region and parts of Kursk, with the restrictions set to run through Dec. 31, 2032.

The measure, established under government decree No. 936, also prohibits participation in crypto mining pools. The decree was signed on July 25 and published on July 31, local media reports.

Russia as a whole accounted for an estimated 175 exahashes per second, or 16.4% of Bitcoin’s global computing power, in the first quarter, according to Luxor’s Hashrate Index. That placed it second behind the U.S., although it’s unclear what capacity was located in the newly restricted region.

The country’s Energy Ministry said a year-round restriction was needed to reduce the risk of power-capacity shortages as energy-intensive mining facilities connect to regional grids. Mining currently consumes roughly 1 gigawatt in the Moscow power system, while the region’s data-center capacity could reach 3.6 GW, or 17% of peak demand, by 2032, Interfax reported after the decree was first signed.

Mining is also linked to the country’s Western sanctions.

Russian companies had been using domestically mined bitcoin in international payments after legal changes designed to counter Western restrictions, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said in December 2024.

Tudor Investment, founded by billionaire investor Paul Tudor Jones, increased its direct stake in BlackRock’s spot bitcoin ETF in the second quarter while cutting its reported call option position in the fund by 85%.

The firm held 688,529 shares of the iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT), valued at $22.9 million as of June 30, according to a 13F filing on Friday.

The share count rose by 109,446, or 18.9%, from 579,083 at the end of March. The holdings are now worth around $24.5 million.

Tudor also reported calls tied to 148,000 underlying IBIT shares, down 85.2% from 998,000 in March. Its put position edged down 1.4% to 715,000 underlying shares from 725,000, according to the filings.

The filing does not disclose the options’ strike prices or expiration dates, so the underlying share counts do not provide a direct measure of Tudor’s directional exposure. And the derivatives positionings are likely a hedging mechanism for its bitcoin bets.

Tudor first disclosed 869,565 IBIT shares in mid-2024 and increased the position to 8.05 million shares, worth $427 million by year-end. It then cut the stake in every quarter of 2025, ending December with 576,523 shares.

Bitcoin’s next major move could be shaped by a seasonal pattern, according to Swan Bitcoin CEO Cory Klippsten. Speaking to Cointelegraph, Klippsten suggested that BTC may form a bottom in October before staging a recovery toward roughly $130,000 ahead of the 2028 halving.

Klippsten’s framing also includes a potentially painful downside scenario: in his view, Bitcoin could drop to the $57,000 area—or even as low as $53,000—before any rebound. At the same time, other market analysts are watching for signs of an earlier bear-market bottom, pointing to an August threshold based on monthly closes.

Key takeaways

• Klippsten expects Bitcoin could bottom in October after a peak above $126,000 in early October 2025, then recover toward about $130,000 before the 2028 halving.
• In his downside scenario, BTC may fall to around $57,000 or even $53,000 before a “quick recovery.”
• Klippsten argues long-term holder accumulation could shift timing earlier than past cycles, referencing a record share of supply held by long-term investors.
• Markus Thielen of 10x Research says a bear-market bottom could be confirmed in August if Bitcoin posts a monthly close above $63,000.
• Klippsten believes altcoins are unlikely to compete with Bitcoin as “money,” while noting that centralized crypto firms may ultimately be pulled under traditional finance regulation.

Why October is on the table for Bitcoin’s “cycle bottom”

Klippsten’s October call is rooted in what he says is a recurring timeline across prior bull-market peaks. He argued that Bitcoin has tended to bottom roughly 12 months after each previous bull-market top. However, he also warned that relying on only a handful of completed cycles is risky—implying investors should treat this as a hypothesis rather than a guaranteed schedule.

The timing he referenced is anchored to BTC’s performance in early October 2025, when Bitcoin reportedly peaked above $126,000. From that peak, Klippsten’s expectation is that the market should bottom in October, followed by recovery into the next phase of the broader cycle.

Importantly, Klippsten’s view is not simply “up from here.” He also pointed to a possible deeper drawdown before a rebound, saying Bitcoin could fall to about $57,000 or potentially $53,000—suggesting that any October bottom would likely arrive after further weakness rather than immediately.

Holder accumulation and the possibility of earlier bottoms

Klippsten’s September-to-October thesis builds on an earlier argument he made in a June conversation with Cointelegraph. In that earlier interview, he suggested BTC might bottom earlier than in past cycles if long-term holders continue accumulating record levels of supply.

Cointelegraph previously reported that Klippsten tied the idea to “record” long-term holder participation, citing 14.7 million BTC as a share held by long-term investors. In the latest discussion, he maintained the idea that accumulation could influence the timing of a bottom—one reason why other analysts may be looking at earlier confirmations than October.

The practical takeaway for market participants is that timing indicators may depend on whether distribution versus accumulation dominates during the downturn. If long-term holders continue to absorb supply, the market could transition faster than a strict historical average would suggest—though Klippsten’s range still includes a potential late-cycle risk floor around the low-$50,000s.

Other analysts target August with a simple monthly signal

While Klippsten focused on October, not every analyst agrees on the month. Markus Thielen, founder of 10x Research, told Cointelegraph that Bitcoin could confirm a bear-market bottom in August if BTC achieves a monthly close above $63,000.

Thielen’s argument is tied to how certain cycle indicators react to key trend confirmations. According to Cointelegraph, a successful August close above $63,000 would turn several of 10x Research’s indicators bullish—essentially framing $63,000 not just as a number to watch, but as a trigger that could change the model’s stance on the market’s trend.

For investors, the difference between “October likely” and “August possible” is more than calendar trivia. It can affect how people manage exposure during drawdowns, how they interpret risk levels, and how quickly they expect liquidity to return. Until BTC clarifies its direction through those month-end thresholds, any month-by-month bottom narrative remains conditional.

Klippsten’s take on altcoins: fewer bets, more regulation

Beyond timing, Klippsten argued that altcoins are losing their credibility as alternatives to Bitcoin as a medium of value. He described them as “basically dead” as competitors to Bitcoin as money and said the “best outcome” for crypto and decentralized finance would be integration into traditional finance—what he referred to as “TradFi.”

Asked about altcoins that may still outperform, he pointed to Hyperliquid as an example of a centralized business that could eventually be treated like part of the traditional financial system. In a quote carried by Cointelegraph, Klippsten said that if a centralized business has a token, regulators and traditional finance may eventually absorb it, viewing it as an exchange and a bank.

That view aligns with how some market observers are interpreting institutional involvement: regulatory pressure and compliance frameworks could determine which crypto products survive and how tokens are structured. Even when an altcoin sees strong traction, the question becomes whether it can evolve into something that fits existing regulatory categories.

Hyperliquid has recently attracted measurable attention on-chain and in DeFi revenue rankings. Cointelegraph cited DefiLlama data showing Hyperliquid generated $5.9 million in revenue during the past week and ranked as the industry’s fifth-largest DeFi protocol by weekly revenue. Cointelegraph also reported that the Hyperliquid HYPE token was up 130% year-to-date, while Bitcoin fell 28% over the same period, according to TradingView.

At the same time, Cointelegraph included a separate perspective from market maker Wintermute. In a July report, Wintermute argued that institutional participation has narrowed altcoin rallies. The firm said liquidity tends to concentrate in assets that institutions favor, while activity across crypto’s “long tail” weakens—suggesting that “altseason” dynamics may be changing from broad-based rotations into more selective bursts.

What to watch next: bottoms versus triggers, not narratives

Whether Bitcoin bottoms in August or October, the most actionable signal may be confirmation through month-end levels and follow-through after sharp selloffs—especially if long-term holder accumulation continues to provide structural support. Separately, Klippsten’s warnings about altcoins “as money” raise a distinct question for traders and builders: will performance continue to be driven by liquidity and token incentives, or will regulation and institutional frameworks progressively reshape what survives in practice?

In the first six months of 2026, the crypto industry raised $11.2 billion. Not one dollar of it went to the permissionless, ungoverned experiments that digital assets were supposed to be built on.

“There is an irony at the heart of crypto, and it took an $11.2 billion dataset to make it obvious,” said Dubai-based crypto lawyer Irina Heaver, founder of NeosLegal. “The industry was born on a single promise: permissionless. Money and markets that answer to no gatekeeper.”

Heaver and her team gathered data that might, as he put it, indicate that “crypto’s permissionless era is over.”

NeosLegal tracked every disclosed crypto funding round between January and June 2026. A total of 377 financing rounds took place, Heaver said via Telegram. The top three sectors by capital raised were payments and stablecoins at $3.7 billion, prediction markets at $2 billion and crypto exchanges and trading platforms at $1.7 billion. All three require regulatory approval to operate, she noted.

“The money has stopped chasing permissionless,” Heaver said. “It is chasing regulated businesses now.”

Prediction markets took point

Prediction markets drove the point. Kalshi raised $1 billion in May in a round that included Sequoia Capital, Morgan Stanley, Ark Invest, and Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), among others. Polymarket raised $600 million from Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the company that owns the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Prediction markets pulled in capital in every single month of the first half of 2026 — a total of 34 rounds in six months, she added.