Crypto World
Visa and Mastercard prove an early Bitcoin payments prediction right
A prediction made more than a decade ago about closer ties between Bitcoin startups and traditional payment companies increasingly resembles the payments market of 2026.
Summary
- A 2014 prediction about traditional payment firms partnering with Bitcoin startups increasingly resembles today’s market.
- Visa and Mastercard now work directly with crypto firms on cards, settlement, stablecoins, and payments.
- BitPay continues expanding regulated crypto payment services more than a decade after joining the payments industry.
Former Electronic Transactions Association CEO Jason Oxman discussed that possibility in an August 2014 interview with CoinDesk. His comments followed BitPay becoming the first digital currency company to join the payments trade group. Oxman said the association would remain open to new payment technologies without formally backing Bitcoin over other systems.
Early Bitcoin partnerships pointed to a wider shift
Oxman argued that payment companies ultimately respond to how consumers and merchants choose to transact. He said the industry was “in the business of facilitating electronic transactions,” regardless of which technology carried those payments.
The comments came during an early period for commercial Bitcoin adoption, when regulators were still debating New York’s BitLicense proposal. Oxman also warned regulators against applying rules simply because a technology was new, while accepting that consumer protection remained a valid concern.
The leadership of ETA has since changed. Jodie Kelley became the organization’s CEO in 2019, and ETA now operates a dedicated Digital Assets committee alongside its other payments industry groups.
Visa and Mastercard build direct crypto partnerships
The type of partnership Oxman discussed is now common across the payments industry. Visa and Stripe-owned Bridge announced plans in March to expand stablecoin-linked Visa cards to more than 100 countries by the end of 2026. As reported by crypto.news, the cards allow users to spend stablecoin balances across Visa’s merchant network.
Visa has also expanded its stablecoin settlement pilot to nine blockchains. The company said in April that the program had reached a $7 billion annualized settlement rate. Visa said the expansion gives payment partners more choice when selecting blockchain networks.
Mastercard has followed a similar path. Its Crypto Partner Program brings together more than 100 crypto companies, financial institutions and payment providers. As reported by crypto.news, Alchemy Pay joined the initiative in May to explore closer links between fiat payments and onchain commerce.
Stablecoins now lead much of the payments expansion
The industry’s focus has also shifted from Bitcoin alone toward stablecoins. Visa, Mastercard and Coinbase recently joined more than 140 companies backing Open Standard, a group developing the Open USD stablecoin.
As reported by crypto.news, the project plans to create payment infrastructure for businesses using a dollar-linked digital asset. The move puts major card networks directly alongside crypto-native companies in developing blockchain payment systems.
BitPay has also continued expanding. Crypto.news recently reported that the payment company secured MiCA authorization in the Netherlands, allowing it to provide regulated crypto and stablecoin services across eligible European Union markets.
More than a decade after Oxman predicted growing cooperation, partnerships between traditional payment networks and crypto companies have moved from isolated experiments into cards, settlement systems, stablecoins and cross-border payments.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong says Bitcoin did not live up to Satoshi Nakamoto’s vision of everyday digital money. It became digital gold instead. Stablecoins took over the payments job, he argues.
Bitcoin (BTC) sits near $64,523, down about 45% from its October 2025 peak of $126,080. Stablecoins are moving the other way, with supply near record highs.
Armstrong Rethinks Bitcoin’s Original Role
Armstrong made the call in an interview with Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath on the People by WTF podcast. Kamath is a self-declared crypto skeptic. He asked the Coinbase boss a simple question. Does Bitcoin still do what it was built for?
“You’re right, I think it’s fair to say at this point that Bitcoin has succeeded as a store of value, and I don’t think it has become a medium of exchange,” Armstrong responded.
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Why Bitcoin Drifted From Satoshi’s Vision
Nakamoto’s 2008 whitepaper promised cash that moves online without banks. Bitcoin’s first block even carried a 2009 headline about UK bank bailouts. That was the mission.
Seventeen years on, Armstrong says the payments dream never landed. Fixes came and went.
“There’s people who have tried to make that happen with the Lightning Network, was an optimisation layer on top of Bitcoin, but it never really took off.”
The bigger problem sits in Bitcoin’s own design. Supply is capped, so holders hoard it like gold.
Armstrong said “people think it’s going to be worth more in the future, so they don’t really want to spend it right now.” Volatility makes it worse, he added.
Stablecoins Take Over the Payments Role
Stablecoins filled the gap. These dollar-backed tokens now do the boring job of money, even as banks defend their old rails.
“So we’ve actually seen massive growth of stablecoins running on blockchains. Fiat-backed stablecoins as the medium of exchange and Bitcoin has remained the store value as digital gold.”
The numbers agree. DefiLlama data shows stablecoin supply near $310 billion. Tether’s USDT holds $184 billion, and Circle’s USDC adds $73 billion.
Armstrong also credits the GENIUS Act, signed in July 2025, for making the tokens legal and trusted in the US. Much of that activity now runs on Base and Solana.
Still, Armstrong sees no failure here. In his view, Bitcoin simply found a different job.
“I think the Bitcoin chain is okay with that. They’re not intending it to be used for high volume payments. They’re digital gold.”
The post Brian Armstrong Admits Bitcoin Didn’t Deliver Satoshi’s Vision, Something Else Did appeared first on BeInCrypto.
Quantum hackers could one day crack old Bitcoin (BTC) wallets and forge their signatures. A new proof from quantum security startup Project Eleven gives real owners a way to take their coins back, using nothing but a seed phrase.
Not everyone can use it, though. Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ) said in June the community could freeze Satoshi Nakamoto’s coins after a quantum breakthrough. Critics called it confiscation.
Why a Bitcoin Quantum Freeze Just Got Less Scary
The freeze idea is already on paper. BIP-361, a proposal co-authored by Casa co-founder Jameson Lopp, would switch off Bitcoin’s old signature system over several years. Coins that never move would freeze forever.
Pressure grew after Washington’s quantum push put the threat on the map. Still, one objection kept coming back. A freeze takes coins away with no path back.
Project Eleven’s recent announcement attacks that weak spot. Its proof works like a receipt. It shows you own the master key behind an address without ever revealing it.
Here is the trick. A quantum computer may crack the private key of an exposed address. However, it cannot climb up to the master key, because the math there only runs one way.
Only the true owner holds that master key. So only the true owner can produce the proof, even after signatures break.
Speed makes it practical. Academics Or Sattath and Shai Wyborski floated the concept in 2023, calling it signature lifting. Lightning Labs CTO Olaoluwa Osuntokun built the first prototype. The new version runs 16 times faster, at 243 milliseconds on a laptop.
“Quantum computers can extract a private key from a public key. They cannot reverse the hashing that produced it. A wallet’s own key derivation may still provide a final, post-quantum proof of ownership,” Project Eleven stated.
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Why the Tool Cannot Save Satoshi’s Coins
The catch sits in the calendar. The proof needs BIP-32, the seed phrase system modern wallets adopted from 2012. Older wallets created every key on its own, with no master key at all.
Satoshi mined in 2009 and 2010 and left before seed phrases existed. Researcher Sergio Demian Lerner’s 2013 analysis ties roughly 1.1 million BTC to Satoshi across some 22,000 addresses.
Worse, those coins expose their public keys on-chain. That makes them the easiest quantum targets and the hardest coins to rescue.
Therefore, CZ’s idea of freezing Satoshi’s coins would still lock them away for good. BIP-361 would do the same by design.
The tool has limits too. It is unaudited, covers three older address types, and no blockchain accepts it yet.
Meanwhile, the clock ticks. Google’s quantum research cut the hardware needed for such attacks by 20 times this year. US agencies also face post-quantum cryptography deadlines by 2031.
One question now hangs over Bitcoin governance. If a freeze ever comes, the fight will not be over whether coins get frozen. It will be over which coins ever come back.
The post Bitcoin Has a New Defense Against Quantum Hackers, But It Can’t Save Everyone appeared first on BeInCrypto.
After a violent eight-week streak with nothing but substantial withdrawals, the spot Bitcoin ETFs changed their course in the middle of July and now extended their recovery period with another green performance.
However, the funds tracking the largest altcoin managed to beat the market leader in terms of weekly net inflows.
BTC ETF Green Wave Endures
Perhaps due to the rising tension in the Middle East over the previous weekend, Monday began with a massive $424.66 million net outflow from the spot BTC ETFs. This was the single-largest withdrawal since June 26. Thus, the good news from the previous week started to look like a fluke that cannot be repeated.
However, investors’ behavior changed in the following four days, and fresh capital started to flow in. Data from SoSoValue shows that $181 million entered the funds on Tuesday, another $107.8 million on Wednesday, $79.15 million on Thursday, and $132.30 million on Friday. As such, the weekend ended in the green, with net inflows of $75.67 million.
Nevertheless, these numbers are nowhere near the mass exodus experienced from the middle of May and the beginning of July. In five out of these eight weeks, investors pulled out $1 billion or more, with the week that ended on June 26 registering the second-highest net outflows of $1.79 billion. Overall, the funds lost more than $8 billion in approximately two months.
The cumulative total net inflows dumped from $59.34 billion to $51.08 billion before they recovered some ground to $51.35 billion as of July 17.
ETH Funds Do Even Better
While the financial vehicles tracking BTC attracted just over $75 million last week, those following the largest altcoin did even better. The spot Ethereum ETFs gained $105.44 million, building on the previous week’s $84.42 million.
Monday was also in the red, but in a more modest manner. Investors took out $15.41 million. Thursday saw $28.04 million in net outflows, but the $58.34 million on Tuesday, $53.83 million on Wednesday, and $36.73 million on Friday offset all the losses.
Similar to the BTC ETFs, the Ethereum counterparts were on an eight-week red streak, in which they lost well over $1.1 billion in cumulative total net inflows, going from $12.09 billion to $10.89 billion. However, the figure has risen to $11.08 billion after the two consecutive weeks in the green in mid-July.
The post 2 in a Row: Bitcoin ETFs Mark Another Green Week, but Ethereum Wins appeared first on CryptoPotato.
A year on, the rules aren’t quite ready for implementation, but we have a much clearer idea as to how the regulators are thinking about stablecoins and where they’re likely to land on those rules.
In an emailed statement, Crypto Council for Innovation CEO Ji Hun Kim called the passage of the bill “a landmark moment.”
“A year in, agencies, institutions, and innovators are building on a clearer foundation, and stablecoins are moving rapidly toward mainstream adoption,” he said.
The various regulators have proposed rules out for comment on the different aspects of stablecoin governance and regulation, including a proposal that would require stablecoin issuers to conduct similar know-your-customer checks to more traditional financial firms. The FDIC published 144 questions a few months ago about how it would oversee stablecoin issuers, looking at concerns like custody, capital and liquidity standards. The OCC, for its part, put out its own proposal in February laying out how it was interpreting the law.
There’s still a few months left before these rules start being finalized. And in the meantime, the industry is still working on getting the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act passed.
The text of the combined Clarity Act drafts is not yet public, at least as of Friday night. While industry sources expected the bill to be released last week, the timeline has constantly evolved. On Thursday, Senators Cynthia Lummis and Bernie Moreno were supposed to brief Trump on the bill. There was no public readout of that meeting available after, but both lawmakers tweeted about Trump’s remarks on the election later Thursday.
Bitcoin’s internal debate over network “spam” and the place of Ordinals has flared again, with MicroStrategy executive chairman Michael Saylor publicly arguing against a proposed protocol change known as BIP-110. In a long post on X published Sunday, Saylor laid out a broad case against activating the temporary fork, warning that the remedy could undermine the principles he associates with Bitcoin’s neutrality and permissionless innovation.
The proposal, first introduced in December 2025, aims to reduce non-monetary transaction behavior—particularly data associated with Ordinals inscriptions—by changing how certain data is handled by validating nodes. While proponents frame it as protection for Bitcoin’s function as peer-to-peer cash, Saylor said he shares those objectives but disagrees with the approach.
Key takeaways
- Michael Saylor opposes BIP-110 despite acknowledging concerns about Ordinals-style network bloat.
- BIP-110 would require broad node support to activate, with the last measured cycle showing only around 1% of blocks signaling approval.
- Ordinals activity has fallen sharply from its 2023 peak, with recent daily inscriptions reported as under 10,000.
- The dispute echoes earlier Bitcoin governance clashes, including the Blocksize Wars era.
- Major figures remain split: supporters argue it avoids long-term disruption, while critics call it social enforcement rather than neutral protocol design.
Saylor’s critique of BIP-110’s “temporary fork”
Saylor described BIP-110 as a bad idea in an extended post on X, presenting a framework centered on “neutral rules, hard consensus, open markets, and permissionless innovation.” He also emphasized that his critique is directed at the proposal itself, not the people who support it.
According to Saylor, some Bitcoiners he respects back BIP-110 to keep validation affordable for node operators, maintain access to the validation process, preserve low-cost payments, and prevent Bitcoin from drifting into a general-purpose data storage system. He said those are serious concerns—but that the planned remedy is not the right one.
“This article critiques the proposal, not the people behind it. I assume good faith. Bitcoin is strongest when we can disagree vigorously without mistaking allies for enemies.”
As of 12 p.m. ET Sunday, the post had reportedly generated 879,000 views on X, along with 692 replies and 852 retweets.
Why activation is uncertain: node signaling remains low
Even if BIP-110 has passionate supporters, activation would not be automatic. The proposal is designed to proceed only if 55% of Bitcoin nodes validating blocks signal support across a Bitcoin “period.”
In the most recently referenced period, period number 475 (covering blocks 955,584 through 957,599), only about 1% of blocks were reportedly in support. That suggests the proposal currently lacks the consensus threshold needed to move forward.
For investors and traders following protocol governance, the key question is not whether arguments for and against BIP-110 are strong, but whether enough of the ecosystem will converge on a shared view quickly enough to clear the activation hurdle. Low signaling so far implies BIP-110 remains in a “discussion” phase rather than a near-term change likely to land.
Ordinals activity has cooled—so what’s the urgency now?
The conflict over Ordinals and other inscription-style behavior is unfolding at a time when on-chain activity appears to have materially cooled. The reporting cited that in the last month there have been fewer than 10,000 Ordinals inscribed per day, according to Dune Analytics.
That figure stands in stark contrast to the period of peak activity in August 2023, when the same metric reportedly exceeded 400,000 daily inscriptions. The current backdrop complicates the “immediate fix” argument advanced by BIP-110 supporters, because network pressure may not be at the same level as during the earlier surge.
Still, supporters contend that the trend could return—or that even without today’s worst-case bloat, maintaining Bitcoin’s long-term usability requires setting clearer boundaries now. Critics, meanwhile, argue that protocol-level “policing” risks turning Bitcoin’s decentralized norms into a contest of preferences.
The personalities and the governance parallels
BIP-110 is notable not only for its technical objectives, but also for the lineup behind it. The proposal was introduced by pseudonymous Bitcoin developer “Dathon Ohm” and reportedly has support from Ocean protocol founder Luke Dashjr. Opponents include Blockstream CEO Adam Back.
Earlier coverage cited that Dashjr and other supporters view Ordinals-driven bloat as a serious threat and argue BIP-110 would not trigger the chain split many fear. They also point to the fork’s design as temporary—described as a one-year limit—claiming it would not invalidate fee-paying transactions over the long term.
Critics reject those characterizations. Back has previously described BIP-110 as a “quest to police other people,” arguing that Bitcoin’s decentralization should prevent one group from imposing its preferences on others. In his framing, the proposal conflicts with what he portrays as Bitcoin’s cypherpunk ethos of permissionless, censorship-resistant money.
Observers have also drawn historical parallels to the Blocksize Wars of 2015–2017, when Bitcoin’s community debated whether raising the block size limit would be worth the risk of a chain split. Like that earlier period, the BIP-110 conflict is fundamentally about governance: who gets to decide what the network should optimize for, and through what mechanism.
What to watch next
The next decisive signal will be whether BIP-110’s support rises meaningfully toward the 55% threshold across future block periods. With Ordinals activity currently reported as far below earlier peaks, the debate may shift from “stop a present-day emergency” to “define Bitcoin’s long-term scope”—and readers should watch for how node signaling changes alongside that evolving narrative.
Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey publicly backed venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya’s call to fully embrace open source artificial intelligence (AI).
Dorsey replied “yes” to Palihapitiya’s post warning that US restrictions on open models would be economically ruinous.
Palihapitiya argued that closing off open source AI would force American firms to pay $26 to $56 per million tokens for intelligence that rivals abroad can buy for $0.50 to $1. He called that gap unsustainable.
The AI Pricing Gap Behind the Debate
Palihapitiya’s argument rests on a widening split between cost and capability. Open weight models have closed much of the performance gap with proprietary systems, yet the price difference remains enormous.
Chinese labs have driven that shift. Beijing-based Moonshot AI’s new model Kimi K3 topped coding benchmarks this month, rattling US chip stocks.
Other releases point to a broader narrowing capability gap between Chinese and American systems.
Palihapitiya frames this as untenable if AI truly underpins future economic activity, since American businesses would face a structural cost disadvantage against global competitors.
He posed the dilemma bluntly, saying intelligence cannot be the engine of the economy and a premium import at the same time.
A Military Argument, Not Just an Economic One
Palihapitiya extended his case to national defense. Paying dozens of dollars per million tokens to defend US systems, while adversaries attack for far less, carries the same imbalance, he said.
David Sacks echoed that view. He agreed with researcher Sebastian Mallaby that dangerous capability will soon spread freely regardless of policy.
Mallaby pointed to the same Mythos-level cyber capability concerns already flagged around Anthropic’s Claude Mythos model, arguing the world moves quickly from almost nobody holding that power to nearly everyone holding it.
Sacks had predicted Chinese models would reach advanced cyber capability within months. He noted that Washington itself staggered its GPT-5.6 release over similar security worries, yet gatekeeping still failed to slow foreign progress. His answer is AI-powered cyberdefense rather than restriction.
Washington’s AI Gatekeeping Dilemma
The exchange lands as US policymakers debate how tightly to control advanced models. Officials have floated plans to vet AI models before release, hoping to manage security risk without ceding ground to China.
Sacks argues that approach cannot work once comparable capability is downloadable worldwide.
Palihapitiya’s framing pushes the same conclusion from an economic angle. Both men land on restriction, not openness, as the greater risk to US competitiveness.
Dorsey’s one-word endorsement carries weight given Block’s own open source AI agent, Goose, which he has championed publicly for years.
Whether Washington heeds the warning, or keeps restricting access, will shape how American firms compete on cost this year.
Palihapitiya’s post had drawn hundreds of thousands of views within hours, a sign the debate resonates well beyond Silicon Valley.
The post Twitter Co-Founder Backs Open Source AI Warning: What’s at Stake? appeared first on BeInCrypto.
Daddy Tate (DADDY), the Solana meme coin built on Andrew Tate’s brand, fell 24% on Sunday. The trigger was the arrest of Andrew and Tristan Tate in Miami, where US Marshals detained them on a UK extradition request.
UK prosecutors also added 38 new charges against the brothers. That lifts their combined total to 59. Once again, the token moved in lockstep with its namesake’s legal troubles.
Tate Brothers Face 59 UK Charges After Miami Arrest
Bedfordshire Police, the UK force leading the case, said in a statement that officers detained the brothers on Saturday. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) approved the new counts after reviewing fresh evidence. The number of alleged victims rose from three to seven.
Andrew Tate, 39, now faces 42 charges. The new ones include seven rape counts, three trafficking counts, three assault counts, and 19 charges tied to indecent images of a child and extreme pornography. Tristan Tate, 38, faces 17 charges after six new counts, including two of rape.
The alleged offenses date from July 2010 to August 2017. Prosecutors want the brothers extradited on all 59 counts. Both deny every allegation.
They already face a separate trafficking trial in Romania dating back to a 2023 indictment. Markets have seen this movie before, as celebrity meme coins tend to swing hard on courtroom news.
DADDY Token Slides Toward Its February Low
BeInCrypto data shows DADDY near $0.0112, down 24% in a day and 22% on the week. Its market value slipped to about $6.7 million, according to DADDY price data.
The market is also thin. Only about $429,000 traded over the day, so even modest selling moves the price fast. DADDY now sits 96% below its June 2024 peak of $0.2886, and not far above its record low of $0.0045 set on February 6.
The pain started earlier this month. Andrew Tate sold his TATE airdrop for about $23,000 despite a public pledge to hold. Meanwhile, analysts have long warned about the risks of celebrity tokens, which run on hype alone.
The next move now hangs on the extradition hearings. For DADDY holders, the chart matters less than the courtroom.
The post DADDY Token Falls 24% On Tate Brothers’ Arrest and New UK Charges appeared first on BeInCrypto.
Bitcoin’s internal debate over how to curb network spam and non-monetary data has intensified after Michael Saylor published a detailed critique of Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 110 (BIP-110). In a long post on X.com dated Sunday, Saylor argued that a proposed temporary fork to restrict certain types of data on the Bitcoin network is the wrong solution—despite acknowledging that the underlying concerns raised by supporters are legitimate.
Introduced in December 2025, BIP-110 has become one of the more prominent protocol-level disputes in the Bitcoin development community since the Blocksize Wars of 2015–2017, when scalability questions sparked intense disagreement over whether changes should risk a chain split. Saylor’s intervention comes as Ordinals activity has cooled from its 2023 peak, raising questions about how urgent such a protocol change really is.
Key takeaways
- Saylor supports the goals behind BIP-110—such as protecting validation and affordable payments—but rejects the proposal’s mechanism as a remedy.
- BIP-110 would only move forward if 55% of validating nodes signal support during a Bitcoin “block period,” and recent support levels have been low.
- Ordinals inscriptions have fallen sharply from their August 2023 highs, potentially reducing the immediate pressure driving urgency for protocol-level fixes.
- The debate mirrors past governance tensions, including the Blocksize Wars, where disagreements over enforcement and network rules frequently threatened to split the ecosystem.
Saylor’s critique: shared goals, different fix
According to Saylor’s post on X.com, his argument is aimed at the proposal itself rather than people who support it. He said many Bitcoiners he respects back BIP-110 for reasons including keeping validation accessible, shielding node operators from unwanted costs, preserving low-cost payments, and preventing Bitcoin from drifting into general-purpose data storage.
Saylor emphasized that he agrees with those objectives but disagrees with the proposed remedy. In the same post, he framed his stance as a call to preserve “neutral rules, hard consensus, open markets, and permissionless innovation,” while stressing that vigorous disagreement should not turn into personal factionalism.
As of Sunday at 12 p.m. ET, Saylor’s post had accumulated 879,000 views, along with 692 replies and 852 retweets, highlighting how quickly the discussion has spread beyond core developer circles.
What BIP-110 would change—and why approval is difficult
Protocol changes like BIP-110 are not automatically activated; they depend on broad agreement among validators. BIP-110 cannot be enacted unless 55% of Bitcoin nodes validating blocks signal support for the proposal during a Bitcoin block “period.”
Based on the latest period referenced in reporting, period number 475—covering blocks 955,584 to 957,599—showed only about 1% of blocks in support. That figure suggests that, even if the proposal is technically live for discussion, it currently lacks the signaling momentum required for activation.
This approval threshold matters for investors and operators because it determines whether the change is likely to take effect in practice versus remaining a contested idea within the dev community. A proposal that fails to reach the required support level may still influence future policy debates, but it is less likely to produce immediate network-level consequences.
The spam-bloat dispute meets a cooling Ordinals market
The BIP-110 controversy is tied to concerns about “non-monetary transactions” and data patterns that proponents describe as spamming. BIP-110 was introduced to limit Ordinals-style inscriptions and other arbitrary data that supporters argue can overload the network and distract from Bitcoin’s primary function as peer-to-peer cash.
However, the political and technical urgency of such proposals is harder to gauge when on-chain activity is shifting. The dispute comes while Ordinals activity is reported to be near all-time lows. According to Dune Analytics data cited in the source material, fewer than 10,000 Ordinals are inscribed into the Bitcoin blockchain daily over the last month—down from more than 400,000 per day during its peak in August 2023.
Lower inscription volumes can change the risk calculus for both sides of the debate. Supporters of protocol limits may argue that even reduced activity can still set harmful precedents for how data is used on-chain. Opponents may counter that if demand and congestion pressure have already eased, a fork—especially one that introduces restrictions—becomes harder to justify without more consensus.
Backers, critics, and echoes of earlier Bitcoin governance fights
BIP-110 was introduced by pseudonymous developer “Dathon Ohm,” with backing that includes Ocean protocol founder Luke Dashjr, according to the source. On the opposition side, Blockstream CEO Adam Back is cited as a vocal critic of BIP-110.
Back has previously described the proposal as an attempt to police other people, arguing that Bitcoin’s decentralization should prevent any faction from imposing its preferred rules on the broader community. The objection is framed not only as technical but ideological—rooted in the cypherpunk principle of permissionless, censorship-resistant money.
Meanwhile, supporters of BIP-110 argue that Ordinals-driven bloat represents a serious threat that demands action. They also maintain that BIP-110 would not cause a chain split, a concern raised by those wary of temporary restrictions. Supporters further argue the fork is intended to be limited—described as a one-year constraint—so that it would not invalidate fee-paying transactions over the long run.
These arguments have led to parallels with the Blocksize Wars between 2015 and 2017, when disagreements over how to scale Bitcoin and whether to risk contentious changes sharpened into a broader debate about enforcement and legitimacy. In both cases, the underlying question is the same: how should the network evolve under pressure while preserving decentralized governance?
In this current cycle, the data points being used by each side are not symmetrical. Saylor is not denying that bloat concerns exist; he is questioning whether the governance approach—introducing temporary restrictions through a fork-like mechanism—is compatible with Bitcoin’s broader commitment to neutrality and hard consensus. At the same time, low recent Ordinals activity weakens one common justification for immediate intervention: that the network is actively under severe strain from inscriptions.
As the debate continues, readers should watch two things closely: whether BIP-110’s support signals rise toward the 55% activation threshold in subsequent block periods, and whether Ordinals activity meaningfully returns or stays subdued. Those developments will likely determine whether the proposal remains a theoretical flashpoint—or becomes a real test of how Bitcoin manages conflict over data usage and network rules.
Cardano activated its Van Rossem hard fork on July 18, upgrading the network to Protocol Version 11 with faster, cheaper smart contracts and stronger node security.
The transition was smooth, but the real question is whether ADA can turn the milestone into lasting price gains.
What the Van Rossem Hard Fork Brings to Cardano
A hard fork is a permanent protocol change that updates a blockchain’s core rules for everyone at once. Van Rossem, named after contributor Max van Rossem, went live around 21:45 UTC.
The upgrade caused only a brief ten-minute block gap, with no disruption to users or holdings. It marks the first major upgrade fully approved through Cardano’s Voltaire governance system.
The improvements target smart contracts directly: faster Plutus execution, new built-in functions, updated cost models, and stronger node security.
Those changes aim to make decentralized application development cheaper. Lower costs and stronger scripting could accelerate DeFi, NFT, and real-world asset activity.
Unlike previous era-changing forks, Van Rossem is an intra-era upgrade. It keeps the network inside the Conway governance framework while delivering immediate efficiency gains for developers.
Intersect, coordinating Cardano’s development, framed the event as proof of maturing decentralized governance.
More than 77% of delegated representatives (DReps) and 52% of stake pool operators backed it.
“The best part: it was ratified on-chain by delegated community reps before activation. Upgrades by governance, not decree,” Cardano DRep Jason Appleton said on X.
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The upgrade also arrives alongside a broader shift. Input Output will hand over core infrastructure, including the Plutus platform and Daedalus wallet, to external firms from August.
Can Van Rossem Deliver a Sustained ADA Rally
As expected with major upgrades, ADA saw short-term momentum. The token trades near $0.1663, up roughly 1.2% in 24 hours, according to BeInCrypto data. Still, the critical question remains whether Van Rossem can deliver a sustained rally. History urges caution.
Cardano hard forks have often generated initial excitement followed by consolidation, unless paired with real ecosystem growth. The lasting impact depends on several factors.
Rising developer activity, new dApp deployments, and growing total value locked in DeFi all matter. So does integration with upcoming upgrades like Ouroboros Leios, built for higher throughput.
Whale behavior adds another layer. Wallets holding 100,000 to 100 million ADA have accumulated over 25.6 billion tokens, their highest level since February 2023.
Analysts stay cautiously optimistic. The upgrade improves fundamentals, but price gains will ultimately depend on user adoption and capital inflow rather than the technical milestone alone.
Van Rossem represents another step in Cardano’s research-driven roadmap.
Whether ADA competes harder against Solana and newer Layer-1s now hinges on real on-chain growth in daily addresses, volume, and developer activity ahead.
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The spot exchange-traded funds tracking the performance of Ripple’s cross-border token took their first hit last week in over two months, but net inflows have returned.
However, there’s still an evident investment exodus that we need to discuss, as the financial vehicles had no reportable data for too many days.
XRP ETFs Are Back
For roughly two months, during which the spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs bled heavily, with billions of dollars leaving both, the XRP counterparts enjoyed investors’ attention by gathering fresh capital. In fact, as we repeatedly reported, they set a 9-week green-only streak, in which they attracted almost $200 million.
This all changed during the second week of July when data from SoSoValue showed that investors pulled out just over $7 million from the funds for the first time in over two months.
However, green is back on XRP’s street as the past week almost offset all the losses from the previous one. The net inflows for the five-day trading period stand at $6.78 million. This means that the cumulative total net inflow is back to its ATH levels of almost $1.5 billion.
Bitwise’s XRP ETF continues to increase the gap between itself and the first such fund to reach Wall Street – Canary Capital’s XRPC. The former now holds almost $500 million in AUM, while the latter is below $470 million.
The Big Catch
Although the week as a whole was indeed in the green, all $6.78 million in net inflows came in just one day: July 16. The rest (four) trading days saw no reportable action, according to SoSoValue. Although the XRP ETFs have seen many such days in the past, there were never four in the same week.
Moreover, seven of the last 10 business days have seen net flows of $0.00. This is a rather concerning trend, clearly showing that interest and demand for the financial products have declined significantly.
Perhaps a portion of the blame can be put on the overall sluggish summer season, in which trading volumes traditionally drop, as investors wait for better times. XRP’s sluggish price performance might also turn investors away, as the asset has failed to break out above the $1.10 resistance despite a few attempts. It remains down by 3% monthly, with a market cap of well under $70 billion.
The post Ripple (XRP) ETFs Resume Inflow Streak, but There’s an Elephant in the Room appeared first on CryptoPotato.
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