Crypto World
What is atomic settlement? Payment-versus-Payment and the and of settlement risk
Atomic settlement means both sides of a deal are complete at the same instant or neither does, removing the centuries-old danger that one party pays and the other fails to deliver. This guide explains payment-versus-payment, why blockchains make it natural, and how banks are now testing it for cross-border trades.
Summary
- Atomic settlement means both sides of a transaction complete at the exact same moment or neither does, removing the risk that one party pays and the other fails to deliver.
- It targets settlement risk, the danger that has haunted finance for decades, most famously when a bank’s collapse left counterparties paid on one leg but not the other.
- Payment-versus-payment (PvP) applies this to currency trades and delivery-versus-payment (DvP) to securities, ensuring the two legs are linked and simultaneous.
- Blockchains and smart contracts make atomic settlement natural, because a single transaction can be programmed to either execute both legs together or fail entirely.
- The shift promises to compress settlement from days toward instant, and bank-backed projects are now testing it for cross-border foreign exchange.
Atomic settlement is a way of completing a transaction so that both sides happen at the same instant or neither happens at all, with no possibility that one party fulfills its obligation while the other fails to fulfill theirs. The word “atomic” captures the essential property: the transaction is indivisible, an all-or-nothing event that cannot be split into a completed half and an uncompleted half. This may sound like an obscure technicality, but it addresses one of the oldest and most dangerous problems in finance, the risk that arises in the gap between agreeing to a trade and actually settling it, during which one party can pay or deliver while the other defaults, leaving the first party out of pocket.
Atomic settlement closes that gap entirely by binding the two sides of a transaction together so they succeed or fail as a single unit. Blockchains, as it happens, are unusually well suited to delivering this property, which is why atomic settlement has become a central promise of tokenized finance.
This guide explains what atomic settlement is, the settlement risk it eliminates, how it applies to payments and securities, why blockchains make it natural, and how banks are now testing it in the real world.
The reason this matters is that settlement risk, though invisible to most people, is a genuine systemic danger that has caused real crises, and the financial industry has spent decades and enormous resources trying to manage it. Atomic settlement offers something the traditional system has never quite achieved: the complete elimination of that risk, not its mitigation but its removal, by making it structurally impossible for one leg of a trade to settle without the other.
Combined with the ability to compress settlement times from days to near-instant, the implications for capital efficiency and financial stability are significant. This guide covers the meaning of atomicity, the nature of settlement risk and the famous failure that named it, the payment-versus-payment and delivery-versus-payment models, a concrete worked example, why blockchains make atomic settlement natural, the move from multi-day to instant settlement, the real-world bank projects now testing it, and the genuine hurdles that remain.
What atomic settlement means
Begin with the core property, because everything else follows from it. A transaction is atomic when it is indivisible: it either completes in full, with both sides fulfilling their obligations simultaneously, or it does not happen at all, with neither side committed. There is no in-between state in which one party has paid and the other has not.
The term is borrowed from computing, where an atomic operation is one that cannot be interrupted partway through, and it carries the same meaning in finance: an atomic settlement cannot be left half-done. If anything would prevent both legs from completing together, the entire transaction reverts, returning both parties to where they started as if nothing had happened.
This all-or-nothing quality is what makes atomic settlement powerful. In an ordinary transaction split across time, there is always a window during which one party has performed and is waiting for the other to perform, and in that window the first party is exposed to the risk that the second fails.
Atomic settlement abolishes that window by making the two performances a single, simultaneous, inseparable event. Neither party can find itself having given value without receiving it, because the giving and receiving are bound together and happen at once or not at all.
The significance is that a risk which traditional finance has always had to manage, monitor, and price, the risk lurking in the gap between the legs of a trade, simply ceases to exist under atomic settlement, because the gap itself is gone. Understanding that the entire benefit flows from this one structural property, indivisibility, is the key to understanding why atomic settlement matters.
The problem it solves: settlement risk
To appreciate atomic settlement, you have to understand the danger it removes, which is called settlement risk, and there is no better illustration than the event that gave one form of it its name. In 1974, a German bank named Herstatt was shut down by regulators in the middle of a business day. Earlier that day, counterparties had paid the bank in German marks as their side of foreign-exchange trades, expecting to receive United States dollars in return once the New York business day began. But the bank was closed before it made those dollar payments, so the counterparties had handed over their marks and received nothing back. They had performed their leg of the trade and were left exposed when the bank failed to perform its leg. This specific danger, where one party pays and the other fails before reciprocating, became known as Herstatt risk, a permanent reminder of what settlement risk can do.
Settlement risk, in general, is the risk that arises in any transaction where the two sides do not settle simultaneously. Whenever there is a gap between when one party performs and when the other does, the party that goes first is exposed to the possibility that the counterparty defaults, becomes insolvent, or simply fails to deliver in that interval. This is sometimes called principal risk, because the party can lose the entire principal amount it advanced, not merely the profit on the trade.
Across the global financial system, where trillions of dollars in currencies, securities, and other assets change hands daily, settlement risk is a pervasive and serious concern, and managing it requires extensive infrastructure, collateral, monitoring, and trust. Atomic settlement is so significant precisely because it does not merely reduce this risk through better management; it eliminates it structurally, by ensuring the two legs settle together so that neither party is ever exposed to the other’s potential failure. The problem that closed Herstatt and has haunted finance ever since simply cannot occur when settlement is atomic.
Payment-versus-Payment and Delivery-versus-Payment
The principle of atomic settlement shows up in finance under two main labels, depending on what is being exchanged, and knowing the difference clarifies the concept. When the exchange is one currency for another, as in a foreign-exchange trade, the atomic version is called payment-versus-payment, often abbreviated PvP.
Under PvP, the payment in one currency and the payment in the other currency are linked so that both happen simultaneously or neither does, ensuring that no party can pay in one currency without receiving the other. This is the direct answer to Herstatt risk: under true PvP, the situation that destroyed Herstatt’s counterparties, paying marks and not receiving dollars, becomes impossible, because the two payments are bound together.
When the exchange is an asset for a payment, as when securities are bought or sold, the atomic version is called delivery-versus-payment, abbreviated DvP. Under DvP, the delivery of the security and the payment for it are linked so that the asset changes hands at the same instant as the money, ensuring that no party delivers a security without receiving payment, and no party pays without receiving the security.
Both PvP and DvP are expressions of the same atomic principle applied to different kinds of trades, and both aim to eliminate the settlement risk that lives in the gap between the legs. The traditional financial system has built elaborate infrastructure to approximate these protections, such as specialized settlement institutions that hold both legs and release them together, but these systems are complex, do not cover every currency or market, and still leave gaps. Atomic settlement on a blockchain offers a way to achieve PvP and DvP more directly and more universally, which is a large part of why the technology has drawn such intense institutional interest.
A worked example: an FX trade with and without atomicity
To make settlement risk and its atomic solution concrete, walk through a single foreign-exchange trade both ways. Suppose a bank in Europe agrees to sell ten million euros to a bank in Asia in exchange for the equivalent in dollars. Under the traditional, non-atomic process, the two payments may not happen at the same moment, because the banks operate in different time zones and through different payment systems.
The European bank might send its euros during its business day, expecting the dollars to arrive later when the other party’s systems process the payment. In the interval between sending the euros and receiving the dollars, the European bank is exposed: if the Asian bank fails, defaults, or is shut down in that window, the European bank has paid ten million euros and may receive nothing, losing the entire principal. This is exactly the Herstatt scenario, and it is a real risk that institutions must monitor and manage on every such trade.
Now run the same trade with atomic settlement. The euro payment and the dollar payment are bound together into a single, indivisible transaction, structured so that both transfers execute at the same instant or neither executes at all. If for any reason the dollar leg cannot complete, the euro leg does not complete either, and both banks remain exactly where they started, with no exposure and no loss.
The European bank can never find itself having sent euros without receiving dollars, because the protocol makes that outcome structurally impossible. The risk window that existed in the traditional version is gone, not managed or reduced but eliminated, because the two legs are no longer separated in time. That is the difference atomicity makes: it converts a trade with an unavoidable risk window into a trade with no risk window at all, which is why the financial industry regards atomic settlement as a genuine advance rather than an incremental improvement.
Why blockchains make atomic settlement natural
Atomic settlement is not new as a concept, but blockchains make it dramatically easier to achieve, and understanding why reveals the deep fit between the technology and the problem. A blockchain transaction is, by its nature, atomic at the level of the ledger: it either executes completely and is recorded, or it fails and changes nothing. Smart contracts, the programmable agreements that run on many blockchains, extend this property to complex, multi-step transactions.
A smart contract can be written so that it performs two transfers, say, moving one asset from party A to party B and another asset from party B to party A, as a single operation that either completes both transfers together or reverts entirely, leaving both parties untouched. This is atomic settlement expressed directly in code, with the all-or-nothing guarantee enforced by the blockchain itself rather than by an external institution.
This is a profound fit, because the property that finance has always struggled to guarantee, that two legs of a trade settle together or not at all, is something a blockchain provides almost for free, as a basic feature of how it works. The earliest crypto version of this idea was the atomic swap, a way for two parties to exchange different cryptocurrencies such that the swap either completes for both or fails for both, with no possibility of one party absconding with the other’s coins.
The same principle now underpins the tokenization of traditional assets: if currencies and securities are represented as tokens on a blockchain, then trades between them can be settled atomically by smart contracts, achieving true PvP and DvP without the elaborate intermediary infrastructure the traditional system requires. The blockchain becomes the neutral venue where both legs settle simultaneously and trustlessly. This is why atomic settlement is so central to the institutional interest in tokenization: the technology delivers, as a native capability, the settlement guarantee that traditional finance has spent decades and fortunes trying to approximate.
From multi-day to instant settlement
Closely tied to atomic settlement is the compression of settlement time, and the two together explain much of the institutional excitement. In traditional markets, settlement often does not happen immediately after a trade is agreed; instead, it occurs after a delay, commonly a couple of business days for many securities, a convention referred to by labels like T plus two, meaning trade date plus two days.
This delay exists for historical and operational reasons, because the traditional system needs time to coordinate the many parties, records, and transfers involved in settling a trade. But the delay is costly: during the gap between trade and settlement, capital is tied up, positions carry risk, and the settlement exposure discussed above persists for longer. Shortening the cycle has been a long-running goal of market reform, with markets gradually moving from longer cycles to shorter ones over the years.
Atomic settlement on a blockchain points toward the logical endpoint of this trend: instant settlement, sometimes called T plus zero, where the trade settles the moment it is executed. Because a smart contract can bind and complete both legs simultaneously, there is no operational reason for a multi-day delay; the settlement can happen at the instant of the trade.
This collapses the settlement window from days to seconds, which has large benefits. Capital is freed immediately rather than tied up for days, settlement risk persists for moments instead of days, and the entire system becomes more efficient and less exposed. The combination of atomicity, which removes the risk in the gap between legs, and instant settlement, which removes the gap in time, is what makes blockchain-based settlement so attractive to institutions.
Together, they promise a financial system where trades settle instantly and with no settlement risk, a meaningful improvement over a status quo built around multi-day cycles and the risks they carry.
The real-world push: bank projects and tokenization
This is not merely theoretical, because banks and market infrastructures are actively testing atomic settlement, which signals that the technology is moving from concept toward production. A notable recent example is a bank-backed initiative bringing together a large group of international banks to study faster cross-border foreign-exchange settlement using atomic, payment-versus-payment swaps of compliant stablecoins, aiming to replace the multi-day settlement that currency trades often still require with simultaneous, same-instant settlement.
The design deliberately works with existing bank standards and messaging infrastructure instead of asking banks to abandon their systems, layering atomic settlement onto the rails they already use. The scale of such efforts, involving banks representing trillions of dollars in assets, shows that the institutional world takes atomic settlement seriously as a practical goal, not just a research curiosity.
The broader context is the tokenization of real-world assets, which is the larger movement that atomic settlement enables. As currencies, government bonds, equities, and funds are increasingly represented as tokens on blockchains, the trades between them can be settled atomically, achieving the simultaneous, risk-free settlement that has long been the ideal.
Major financial institutions and market infrastructures have been running pilots and building platforms for tokenized assets precisely because the settlement properties are so attractive, and the tokenized-asset sector has grown substantially as a result. The convergence of tokenized assets and atomic settlement is, in many ways, the heart of the institutional crypto thesis: not speculative tokens, but the use of blockchain technology to settle real financial transactions instantly and without settlement risk.
The bank projects testing it today are the early, concrete steps toward that future, and their progress is a useful signal of how quickly atomic settlement is moving from promise to practice.
Risks and open questions
For all its promise, atomic settlement carries real hurdles and risks that an informed reader should weigh instead of accepting the idealized vision. The first is a liquidity requirement: atomic settlement demands that both legs of a trade be available to settle at the same instant, which means the necessary assets or funds must actually be present on the settlement venue simultaneously. In a world where value is fragmented across many blockchains and traditional systems, ensuring that both legs are present and ready at the same moment is a genuine operational challenge, and a trade cannot settle atomically if one side’s liquidity is not there when needed.
Other open questions are significant. Legal finality is one: for atomic settlement to be trusted by institutions, the law must recognize a blockchain settlement as final and irreversible in the same way it recognizes traditional settlement, and the legal frameworks for this are still developing in many jurisdictions.
Fragmentation is another, because if assets are tokenized across many incompatible blockchains, achieving atomic settlement between them requires interoperability that does not always exist, and bridging between chains can reintroduce the very risks atomic settlement was meant to remove.
There are also operational demands, since instant, around-the-clock settlement requires institutions to manage liquidity continuously instead of within business-day cycles, a real change to how treasury operations work. And the technology itself must be secure, because a flaw in a settlement smart contract could undermine the guarantees the whole system relies on.
None of these hurdles is necessarily fatal, and the active bank projects suggest they are being worked through, but they are real, and atomic settlement should be understood as a powerful approach still maturing instead of a finished solution. As with any emerging financial technology, the gap between a successful pilot and universal adoption can be wide, and the risks in that gap are worth respecting.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is atomic settlement in simple terms?
Atomic settlement is a way of completing a transaction so that both sides happen at the same instant or neither happens at all. The word “atomic” means indivisible: the transaction cannot be left half-done, with one party having paid and the other not. If anything would stop both legs from completing together, the whole transaction reverts and both parties end up where they started. This removes the risk that one party performs while the other fails, which is the core danger in any trade where the two sides do not settle simultaneously.
What is settlement risk?
Settlement risk is the danger that arises in the gap between agreeing to a trade and actually settling it, during which one party can pay or deliver while the other defaults, leaving the first party exposed. It is sometimes called principal risk, because the exposed party can lose the entire amount it advanced. The classic example is Herstatt risk, named after a German bank shut down in 1974 after its counterparties had paid it in marks but before it paid them dollars, leaving them with nothing. Atomic settlement eliminates this risk by binding the two legs together.
What is the difference between PvP and DvP?
Both are forms of atomic settlement applied to different trades.
Payment-versus-payment, or PvP, applies to currency exchanges, linking the payment in one currency to the payment in the other so both happen together or neither does, which directly prevents Herstatt-style losses.
Delivery-versus-payment, or DvP, applies to securities, linking the delivery of the asset to the payment for it so the security and the money change hands at the same instant. Both express the same atomic principle, ensuring no party gives value without simultaneously receiving what they were promised.
Why are blockchains good at atomic settlement?
Because a blockchain transaction is naturally atomic: it either executes completely or fails and changes nothing. Smart contracts extend this to complex trades, allowing two transfers to be bound into a single operation that either completes both together or reverts entirely. This gives, as a native feature, the all-or-nothing settlement guarantee that traditional finance has spent decades trying to approximate with elaborate intermediary infrastructure. When currencies and securities are tokenized on a blockchain, trades between them can settle atomically through smart contracts, achieving true PvP and DvP directly.
What is the difference between T+2 and T+0 settlement?
T plus two means a trade settles two business days after it is agreed, a common convention in traditional markets that exists because the legacy system needs time to coordinate the many parties and records involved. During that delay, capital is tied up and settlement risk persists. T plus zero, or instant settlement, means the trade settles the moment it is executed, which atomic settlement on a blockchain makes possible because a smart contract can complete both legs simultaneously. Moving from T plus two to T plus zero frees capital immediately and shrinks the risk window from days to seconds.
Is atomic settlement actually being used?
It is being actively tested and piloted instead of universally deployed. Bank-backed initiatives have brought together large groups of international banks to study faster cross-border foreign-exchange settlement using atomic, payment-versus-payment swaps, working with existing bank standards instead of replacing them. The broader tokenization of real-world assets, which has grown substantially, relies on atomic settlement as a core benefit, and major institutions have run pilots and built platforms around it. So atomic settlement is moving from concept toward practice, though real hurdles around liquidity, legal finality, interoperability, and operations remain to be worked through.
This article is educational information, not financial or investment advice. The technology and the projects described are still developing, and details reflect reporting available as of June 26, 2026, which can change quickly. Verify current information from primary sources before relying on anything described here.
Crypto exchange Bitget said it was registered as a financial service provider with New Zealand’s financial regulator, enabling it to expand its services in the country.
BitMEX has announced it will shut down on September 23, following “a strategic review of the business and the broader crypto industry.”
The Arthur Hayes-founded exchange revealed earlier today that it was closing down, but didn’t expand on what exactly caused the closure. Users were encouraged to withdraw their funds and close any positions they may hold.
BitMEX stressed that assets are safe and remain in users’ control, and explained that it’s simply giving a timely warning to “ensure a smooth withdrawal process for everyone.”
At time of writing, the exchange holds over $739 million worth of customer assets, along with an insurance fund with $239 million worth of BTC and $31 million worth of USDT.
The exchange is the 35th most active crypto derivatives exchange and 65th largest crypto exchange overall.
The exchange’s BMEX token was also unstaked for every user, and has collapsed 97% across the last four hours. BMEX was already down 99.87% from its 2022 all-time high.
BitMEX’s shuttering coincides with a crypto bear market that’s seen multiple crypto firms lay off staff. Since January 2026, the company’s trading volume has only crossed $1 million 14 times.
Read more: Crypto firms cut jobs as bear market and AI shift bite
Going forward, no new BitMEX accounts can be created, with all services due to be closed in September (except withdrawals). Accounts with funds remaining will be charged monthly at “USD50 equivalent or 1% per annum (whichever is greater).”
BitMEX hasn’t commented on plans for its $270 million insurance fund after September 23. Protos reached out to BitMEX regarding its plans for its insurance fund but did not receive a response prior to publication time.
The insurance fund has grown over time, mostly due to BitMEX profits from trading fees and liquidations. Although some people have called it ‘one of the best performing funds of all time,’ its outperformance partially came at the expense of exchange-affiliated marketmakers trading against BitMEX customers.
BitMEX warned that winding down a company can allow criminals to take advantage of uncertainty. “Be vigilant for phishing attempts using this news, or promising priority or accelerated withdrawals – no such expedited service is available,” it told users.
It added, “While this news is difficult to share, we are proud of everything that has been built at the company since its launch as a pioneer of crypto derivatives.”
BitMEX was bad at stopping money laundering
BitMEX was founded in 2014 by Arthur Hayes, Ben Delo, and Samuel Reed. Together they created the 100x leverage perpetual swap, which BitMEX claimed at one point to have been “the most traded product in the crypto industry.” The holding company of BitMEX has been 100x Group, named after that product.
In February 2022, Hayes and Delo pled guilty to breaking the Bank Secrecy Act and violating anti-money laundering (AML) laws. Reed pled guilty one month later to similar charges.
For a time under their stewardship, the exchange had limited KYC or AML checks. This resulted in a Department of Justice enforcement action for compliance failures.
Read more: BitMEX moon mission to end with bitcoin burning up on re-entry
All three were fined $10 million each, and the exchange was later fined $100 million. However, months after that fine, President Donald Trump pardoned the founders.
Delo has since gone on to fund right-wing political hubs used by some of the UK’s most influential right-wing figures, and backs Reform UK, Nigel Farage’s party that is currently embroiled in a growing crypto “gifts” scandal.
Got a tip? Send us an email securely via Protos Leaks. For more informed news and investigations, follow us on X, Bluesky, and Google News, or subscribe to our YouTube channel.
Q. Not all tokenized equity products are the same. What is the most important distinction to understand?
The central question is what the token actually represents. In the strongest model, the token is the share itself, meaning ownership, voting rights and dividends travel with it. In a synthetic wrapper, the investor owns a contractual claim against another entity, not the underlying share, introducing counterparty risk, tracking risk and the possibility that corporate actions do not pass through correctly.
Two tokens with the same ticker can represent very different instruments. The SEC’s January 2026 staff statement drew this distinction explicitly. For advisors evaluating these products, the structure is not a technical detail. It determines what rights the holder actually has.
Q. How developed is the regulatory framework at this point?
More developed than most people realize, but with gaps remaining. In the past eight months, the SEC issued a no-action letter for DTC tokenization services, published a staff statement establishing ownership taxonomy and approved Nasdaq’s proposal to trade tokenized securities alongside conventional shares. DTCC completed its first live production transactions this month.
Despite the progress, uncertainty still exists. Tokenized equities remain largely restricted to non-U.S. or accredited investors, the CLARITY Act has not been enacted, and third-party synthetic models carry more legal uncertainty than issuer-sponsored structures. The framework is building in a clear direction, but there is still much to accomplish to drive confidence and adoption.
BitMEX’s BMEX token plunged about 90% after the exchange announced plans to shut down, ending nearly 12 years in business as its Bitcoin futures market share shrank.
Michael Saylor’s Strategy has joined eight financial firms in pledging $15 million over three years to protect Bitcoin, starting with preparations for potential quantum-computing threats.
Summary
- Strategy and eight financial firms pledged $15 million to strengthen Bitcoin’s long-term security.
- BlackRock, Coinbase, ARK Invest and others will independently fund developers and researchers.
- Quantum readiness will be the consortium’s first focus despite uncertain threat timelines.
Strategy announced the Bitcoin Security Consortium in a press release, naming Anchorage Digital, ARK Invest, BlackRock, Block, Blockstream, Coinbase, Fidelity Digital Assets and Galaxy Digital as its other founding members.
Drawn from several parts of the institutional Bitcoin market, the coalition includes exchange-traded fund issuers, custodians and infrastructure companies. BlackRock, Fidelity and ARK Invest issue spot Bitcoin ETFs, while Anchorage Digital and Coinbase provide custody services. Block, Blockstream and Galaxy Digital operate businesses tied to Bitcoin infrastructure and financial products.
Rather than combining the $15 million under a central fund, each founding member will choose which developers, researchers and organizations receive its share, according to Strategy. The model allows the companies to finance different projects while coordinating their security work through the consortium.
Brink Executive Director Mike Schmidt will coordinate the consortium’s daily operations in a volunteer capacity, Strategy stated. Addressing concerns about his independence, Schmidt wrote on X that he will receive no compensation and will continue running Brink separately from the founding firms.
“I continue to run Brink, independent of any Consortium member. I’ve committed to a year in this role, maybe I’d do two, but ultimately I see it as a seat that should rotate to other participants over time. My commitment is to Bitcoin, and that doesn’t change.”
Wall Street funding targets Bitcoin security research
Under its initial plan, the consortium will support developers and researchers already working on Bitcoin security, with quantum readiness serving as its first focus, according to Strategy. Schmidt added that the group could finance other security projects if the initial program proves effective.
Protocol decisions will remain outside the consortium’s control. In his X post, Schmidt stated that the group will not adopt collective positions on Bitcoin upgrades, leaving members to direct their funding independently while developers use the network’s existing review process.
Galaxy Digital had committed separate funds to the field before joining the consortium. As crypto.news reported earlier this week, the company opened applications for a $5 million Bitcoin Quantum Readiness Initiative supporting quantum-resistant signatures, wallet migration tools and independent security audits.
According to Galaxy, introducing post-quantum protections would require years of cooperation among Bitcoin Core developers, exchanges, wallet providers, infrastructure companies and users. Its grant program also invites other institutions to contribute money and research to the effort.
Galaxy’s initiative and the consortium pledge have placed $20 million behind the two disclosed programs. The commitments remain separate, however, as Strategy’s consortium allows every member to control its own grants.
Bitcoin’s quantum exposure carries a market cost
Future quantum computers could threaten Bitcoin if they become capable of breaking the elliptic curve cryptography that protects its wallets, according to the companies and researchers behind the programs. Galaxy noted that current machines cannot perform such an attack and most experts do not expect an immediate danger.
Despite the uncertain timeline, Galaxy argued that preparations must start early because deploying new protections across Bitcoin could take years. The company has prioritized alternative signature algorithms, tools that help users transfer funds into safer wallets and audits that test proposed defenses.
CryptoQuant research cited by Galaxy estimated that around 6.9 million BTC could become exposed if a sufficiently powerful quantum computer broke Bitcoin’s existing cryptography. Using market prices from its announcement, Galaxy valued those potentially vulnerable holdings at about $461 billion.
Citi has reached a similar estimate, according to an earlier crypto.news report. The bank calculated that between 6.5 million and 6.9 million BTC may already have public keys visible on-chain, creating a pool of coins that researchers consider more vulnerable to a future quantum attack.
Lost wallets pose another problem because their owners cannot transfer the coins to addresses protected by updated cryptography. Quantus warned in a previously reported assessment that quantum development may be advancing faster than earlier estimates, which could leave dormant and inaccessible holdings without a practical migration route.
Concern over the issue has also entered Bitcoin valuation models. As crypto.news reported in early June, Capriole Investments founder Charles Edwards estimated that Bitcoin was trading at a 28% “quantum discount” compared with his projected valuation path toward $120,000.
Bitcoin traded near $62,099 following a sharp selloff when Edwards presented the model. He attributed the discount to investor concern over what he described as slow progress among Bitcoin Core developers on post-quantum signature planning.
Prediction-market traders remain less worried about the immediate timeline. Polymarket data placed the probability of quantum computing breaking Bitcoin by December 2027 at 14%.
With Strategy coordinating institutional participation and Galaxy already accepting grant applications, the funding gives researchers additional resources before quantum computers pose a proven threat. The consortium’s first test will be whether independently directed grants produce usable security tools without influencing Bitcoin’s protocol governance.
Ripple’s XRP remains trapped beneath a major technical barrier despite recovering from its late June lows. The recent rebound has improved short-term sentiment, but the price is now approaching an area where buyers must absorb significant overhead supply before a broader trend reversal can be considered.
Ripple Price Analysis: The Daily Chart
The daily chart shows XRP continuing to trade within a well-defined long-term descending channel. Although the recent rebound has lifted the asset away from the $1.02 to $1.05 demand zone, the broader structure still favors sellers while the asset remains below the channel’s upper boundary and the major moving averages.
The immediate hurdle sits inside the $1.24 to $1.29 resistance zone, where the upper channel boundary converges with the 100-day moving average. This confluence makes the area particularly important, as a rejection here would reinforce the prevailing downtrend.
A successful breakout above this region would expose the 200-day moving average next, but buyers first need to reclaim the current resistance cluster before a more constructive outlook can develop.
On the downside, the $1.02 to $1.05 demand zone remains the primary support. Losing this area would likely shift momentum back toward the broader bearish trend.
XRP/USDT 4-Hour Chart
The 4-hour chart paints a more constructive short-term picture. XRP has managed to reclaim the descending trendline that capped the price action throughout July and is now consolidating directly beneath the $1.16 to $1.18 supply zone.
This resistance has repeatedly rejected bullish attempts in recent weeks, making it the key level to monitor. A decisive breakout above $1.18 could trigger a move toward the daily resistance around $1.24 to $1.29, while another rejection would likely send the price back to retest the broken trendline as initial support.
As long as the asset continues to hold above the reclaimed trendline, buyers retain a modest short-term advantage. However, the broader trend will remain neutral to bearish until the price establishes acceptance above the overhead resistance cluster.
The post Ripple Price Analysis: XRP’s Recovery Is a Trap Until This Happens appeared first on CryptoPotato.
Bernstein reiterated that it is still overweight on Bitcoin mining, arguing that the sector’s expanding partnerships are increasingly tied to the power needs of AI data centers. In a Thursday research note shared with Cointelegraph, the firm pointed to a steady stream of AI-related deals throughout July—evidence, it said, that access to electricity is becoming the decisive constraint for AI infrastructure buildouts.
According to Bernstein’s Bitcoin mining industry deal tracker, the number of AI-related transactions recorded in July averaged at least one per week. Combined, those deals total more than 7.5 gigawatts of capacity, or the contracted equivalent of $150 billion across multi-year agreements.
Key takeaways
- Bernstein says Bitcoin miners’ third-party computing capacity remains valuable as AI growth is constrained more by power availability than by software or hardware supply.
- In July, Bernstein’s tracker recorded AI-related deal flow at roughly a weekly pace, totaling over 7.5 GW and the equivalent of $150 billion in multi-year contracted value.
- Recent announcements from Hut 8 and IREN linked mining firms to large-scale AI infrastructure and cloud revenue models.
- Bernstein also highlighted political pushback in the US that could slow new data center construction—making contracted capacity sourced from miners and other providers harder to replicate.
Why Bernstein still favors miners
The core of Bernstein’s argument is that AI data center development is increasingly bottlenecked by electricity access. As power becomes harder to secure, miners and other third-party computing providers—already operating energy-intensive facilities—may be better positioned to supply the incremental capacity AI companies need.
Bernstein’s note framed this as a structural opportunity rather than a short-term market trade. The firm linked the attractiveness of the mining sector to the growing number of partnerships that allow AI-focused operators to secure power and compute capacity through contracted arrangements.
July deal momentum and what it signals
Public market interest in the “AI-miner” theme accelerated after Bitcoin mining companies announced major infrastructure and cloud deals. On Monday, shares tied to AI infrastructure moves posted double-digit gains, following announcements from Hut 8 and IREN.
Hut 8 disclosed a 15-year, $9.8 billion lease for its AI data center campus. IREN, meanwhile, announced $2.8 billion in cloud services contracts with AI developers. Bernstein’s upbeat framing aligns with a broader investor focus on miners converting their physical capacity into more predictable, contract-based revenue streams.
As Seeking Alpha contributor The Curious Analyst wrote in a Thursday commentary, IREN appears to be turning an infrastructure advantage into “contracted and more predictable revenue,” while noting execution risk as the key potential downside.
Beyond those two names, other publicly traded miners also expanded their AI ambitions. Earlier in July, MARA Holdings said it planned to acquire a Texas site with up to 2 gigawatts of capacity to support its AI and digital infrastructure business. TeraWulf signed a 20-year data center lease with AI startup Anthropic, which the company said could generate roughly $19 billion in contract revenue. Bitdeer has also moved into AI cloud services and high-performance computing.
Bernstein’s ratings, as reported in the research note shared with Cointelegraph, include an outperform stance on all of the stocks it discussed except MARA, which it rates as market perform. Sector performance reflected the same narrative: CoinShares Bitcoin Mining ETF (WGMI) was up ahead of the Nasdaq open, with several miner stocks also higher in premarket activity.
US political friction could raise the value of contracted capacity
Bernstein’s analysis also tied the AI-miner alignment to a policy environment that could complicate new data center construction. The firm said bipartisan political pushback is increasingly shaping the timeline and feasibility of building additional facilities, especially amid concerns about local impacts such as water use and electricity costs.
In Texas, a report by the Houston Chronicle said a proposal backed by Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico would strengthen local approval processes and repeal certain tax breaks for AI data centers. In Oregon, US Senator Ron Wyden has publicly raised concerns about water scarcity during drought conditions, arguing that large data centers can consume up to 5 million gallons of water per day and asking operators to explain how they would reduce groundwater withdrawals to protect local supplies.
At the federal level, the Trump administration published a “Ratepayer Protection Pledge” aimed at expanding AI infrastructure without increasing electricity bills for households and small businesses. Separately, state governors released plans to expand the grid to meet rapidly growing AI data center demand, while emphasizing that new facilities should bear the costs they create instead of shifting them to existing residential and small business customers.
For investors, the implication is straightforward: if political and infrastructure constraints delay new capacity coming online, the market may increasingly reward entities that already have power access and can lock in compute demand through multi-year contracts.
What to watch next
With Bernstein pointing to both deal volume and policy headwinds, the next signal for the sector is whether miners can sustain the rate of AI-linked contracting and translate that into longer-term revenue visibility—especially as regulators and local communities continue to scrutinize data center construction.
Bitcoin’s latest rally has carried the asset back into an area where sellers have previously regained control. The coming sessions should reveal whether this recovery has enough strength to continue or if another rejection is waiting around the corner.
Bitcoin Price Analysis: The Daily Chart
On the daily timeframe, BTC has extended its recovery into the $65.5K-$66.7K supply zone after successfully reclaiming the descending trendline that had capped the price action for weeks. While this breakout represents a notable improvement in market structure, the broader trend remains constrained beneath the declining 100-day moving average, with the 200-day moving average positioned even higher.
The current resistance zone also coincides with a previous distribution area, increasing the likelihood of seller activity around current levels. A decisive daily close above $66.7K would strengthen the bullish case and expose the next resistance around $72K-$74K.
On the downside, the former breakout area near $63K-$64K now serves as the first demand zone. As long as BTC holds above this region, buyers remain in short-term control. Losing this support would shift attention back toward the broader demand zone around $58K-$59.5K, where the latest impulsive rally originated.
BTC/USDT 4-Hour Chart
The 4-hour chart highlights a clear shift in momentum after Bitcoin broke above the descending trendline and rallied directly into the overhead supply zone around $65.5K-$66.7K. The market is now consolidating beneath resistance after rejecting the upper boundary of the range.
This pause appears consistent with profit-taking rather than a confirmed trend reversal, especially since the previous resistance trendline has already been reclaimed. If buyers manage to absorb the current supply, a breakout above $66.7K could trigger another impulsive leg higher.
However, failure to sustain current levels would likely result in a pullback toward the $63K-$64K demand zone, which aligns with the recently broken trendline and could serve as the next area for buyers to defend before another attempt higher.
Sentiment Analysis
The one-year Binance liquidation heatmap shows a notable concentration of short-side liquidity around the $88K region, standing out as one of the largest untouched liquidity pools above the current market price.
From a market structure perspective, this aligns with the broader idea that Bitcoin may eventually be drawn toward that liquidity. However, until price sweeps the $90K cluster and successfully establishes acceptance above it, it is difficult to argue that the higher-timeframe trend has fully transitioned into a bullish market.
As a result, the current recovery should still be viewed with caution. Although the technical structure has improved over the short term, every bullish leg can still be interpreted as corrective within the broader bearish context until the major overhead liquidity is cleared and price stabilizes above that region.
The post Bitcoin Price Analysis: BTC Rally Loses Steam as Historical Resistance Comes Into Play appeared first on CryptoPotato.
Crypto World
Goldman Sachs CEO backs Clarity Act despite banking industry’s concerns over stablecoin rules
Solomon’s endorsement contrasts with growing opposition from other major banking executives, including JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, who have argued that the legislation could put traditional banks at a competitive disadvantage by allowing crypto companies to offer yield-bearing stablecoin products that resemble bank deposits without being subject to the same regulatory framework.
Speaking to Fox Business in May, Dimon said he was dissatisfied with the latest version of the bill because “it allows them to effectively pay interest on deposits, stablecoins or something like that, without protection that they should have.”
“The banks will not accept it that way,” Dimon said. “I’m not worried about stablecoins but if it happened I’m telling you I will have nothing to do with it and it will eventually blow up.”
JPMorgan has also warned that crypto legislation should close regulatory gaps rather than create new ones. In a blog post published in June, executives at the bank argued that firms offering products that function like traditional bank accounts should face comparable oversight and consumer protections.
The debate over stablecoin rewards has become one of the biggest sticking points in negotiations over the CLARITY Act. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has argued that banks are lobbying lawmakers to restrict stablecoin rewards because they threaten banks’ deposit-based business models, while banking executives contend that crypto firms offering bank-like products should be regulated like banks.
Uniswap (UNI), one of the largest and longest-running decentralized exchanges, is making a deeper push into tokenized assets, introducing a feature designed to let regulated securities trade on the venue without sacrificing compliance requirements.
The decentralized exchange’s developer, Uniswap Labs, is rolling out “Permissioned Pools” on Thursday, a piece of infrastructure that allows issuers of tokenized funds, equities and other regulated assets to restrict trading to approved investors while still using the protocol’s automated market maker.
That “gives issuers a flexible way to enforce their own compliance rules without building separate trading infrastructure,” Ken Ng, head of ecosystem at Uniswap Labs, explained to CoinDesk.
“The next generation of value coming onchain, and it’s trading on Uniswap,” he said.
Launch partners include tokenization firms Securitize (SECZ) and Superstate, along with European digital securities platform Dowgo, all of which plan to use the framework for regulated onchain assets.
Tokenization trend enters DeFi
The move fits into a broader shift across decentralized finance (DeFi), where protocols originally built for open, permissionless trading and lending are increasingly adapting to the needs of financial institutions bringing traditional, regulated real-world assets (RWA) onto blockchain rails. One example for that is Aave, the largest decentralized lender, which rolled out Horizon, an institutional lending venue for tokenized assets.
Baltimore Ravens 2026 training camp preview: Cornerback
Emmerdale cast take to the skies in plane stunt and our hearts are in our mouths | Soaps
BlackRock, Prashant Jain-backed 3P India among others invest in Indo MIM IPO anchor book of Rs 1,141 crore
-
Fashion6 days agoWeekend Open Thread – Corporette.com
-
NewsBeat7 days agoLondon Mayor Sadiq Khan handed a peerage by Keir Starmer alongside 15 other Labour figures… just days before the PM leaves No10
-
Politics5 days agoThe House | The City of London can help the new chancellor deliver growth in every postcode
-
Crypto World5 days agoRipple Payments Joins MiCA With 14 Firms, Does It Mean Anything For XRP?
-
Crypto World6 days agoTwo July Windows Left: The CLARITY Act’s Senate Fight and What Failure Means
-
Politics4 days agoDemocrats look to World Cup watch parties to register thousands of voters
-
Crypto World6 days agoRipple wins EU-wide access as ESMA adds it to MiCA register
-
Crypto World2 days agoGrayscale Files For Worldcoin ETF, WLD Registers Sharp Rise
-
NewsBeat3 days agoUnregistered fitter used Gas Safe logo on business flyers
-
Tech3 days agoSail Virtually Aboard The “Itanic” With IA-64 Emulator
-
Crypto World7 days agoInjective Submits SEC Transfer-Agent Registration to Onchain Ownership Records
-
Tech3 days agoTurtle Beach Command Series KB7 review: a nifty screen-equipped gaming keyboard
-
NewsBeat6 days agoRegistration is now open for March for Men with Kev 2026
-
Business1 day agoNew Jersey voter registration controversy explained: How 6,600 noncitizens got on the rolls, and what happens next
-
Crypto World7 days agoClaude Fable 5 Slips to Second in AI Coding Leaderboard
-
News Videos6 days agoMoney | Class 12 Economics | CBSE Board Exam 2026-27
-
Business7 days agoBanco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, S.A. (BBVA) Discusses Global Macro Environment and Economic Outlook for Core Markets Transcript
-
Crypto World5 days agoKaspersky exposes OkoBot’s 20-module crypto wallet attack
-
News Videos4 days agoBig Money Is Entering XRP
-
Business6 days agoAirlines warn Sunshine Protection Act could disrupt flight scheduling
You must be logged in to post a comment Login