Crypto World
what it means for XRP
For most of 2026, the CLARITY Act has been XRP’s one great catalyst, the bill that would write its commodity status into federal law. Now prediction markets put its 2026 passage at 42%, down from the low seventies, as a human-trafficking backlash, a banking-lobby fight, and a closing legislative window collide. Here is what the falling odds actually mean for XRP.
Summary
- Prediction markets now price the CLARITY Act’s chances of becoming law in 2026 at around 42%, down sharply from highs near 73% earlier in the year.
- The bill would codify XRP’s classification as a digital commodity into federal statute, the catalyst analysts say could unlock billions in institutional ETF demand.
- The odds fell as an anti-trafficking coalition attacked a decentralized-finance provision, the banking lobby fought stablecoin rules, and the path to 60 Senate votes narrowed.
- The legislative window is closing fast: the White House targeted a July finish, the Senate Banking and Agriculture versions still need reconciling, and the August recess effectively ends the year’s chances.
- For XRP, passage could open a path toward analyst targets of several dollars, while failure or delay removes its one Ripple-specific catalyst and leaves it moving with Bitcoin.
For most of 2026, XRP has had one great catalyst hanging over it, a single piece of legislation that holders have treated as the event capable of finally breaking the token out of its year-long range: the CLARITY Act, the crypto market-structure bill that would write XRP’s status as a digital commodity into federal law. For months the bill advanced, clearing the House, then a key Senate committee, and prediction markets priced its passage as increasingly likely, with odds climbing into the low seventies. That optimism has now reversed. As of late June, prediction-market data assigns roughly a 42% probability that the CLARITY Act becomes law in 2026, a sharp decline that reflects mounting trouble on several fronts at once.
A bill that looked, for a while, like it was on a glide path to the president’s desk now sits on a knife edge, and because XRP’s near-term thesis has been so tightly bound to it, the falling odds are a genuinely important development for anyone holding the token. The reason the odds matter so much is that the CLARITY Act is not just another crypto bill for XRP; it is the specific catalyst the market has been waiting on, the one event that could turn today’s favorable but fragile regulatory interpretation into durable statutory certainty. Spot XRP exchange-traded funds have launched and gathered over $1 billion, the token won legal clarity when its long battle with the securities regulator ended, and a later joint classification treated it as a digital commodity, but all of that rests on interpretive ground that a future administration could in principle reverse. The CLARITY Act would put XRP’s commodity status into actual law, removing the last layer of uncertainty that keeps large institutions on the sidelines, and analysts have projected that passage could unlock several billion dollars in additional ETF inflows.
This piece explains why the odds have fallen, the specific obstacles now in the bill’s path, the closing legislative window, and, most importantly, what each outcome, passage or failure, would actually mean for XRP’s price and prospects. The aim is to give holders a clear, grounded read on a catalyst that has become harder to handicap.
Why the odds fell
The decline from the low seventies to the low forties did not come from a single event but from a convergence of problems that have collectively made passage look less certain. The most striking new obstacle is a backlash centered on a specific provision of the bill. According to a letter obtained by a Washington publication, the Alliance to End Human Trafficking, a Catholic-backed anti-trafficking organization, urged Senate leaders to revisit a decentralized-finance provision in the CLARITY Act, warning that it could weaken safeguards against illicit finance. The concern centers on Section 604 of the bill, which would codify the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act.
Under that provision, software developers who build decentralized blockchain applications would not be held responsible for crimes committed by users of those platforms and would not be treated as money transmitters. The anti-trafficking group warned that this language could open regulatory gaps that make it harder for authorities to detect and track financial activity tied to crimes such as human trafficking. This kind of opposition is politically potent in a way that technical crypto disputes are not, because it reframes the bill from a question of market structure into a question of whether Congress is weakening tools used to fight trafficking. That framing gives wavering lawmakers a powerful reason for caution.
It is not the only pressure. The banking lobby has been fighting provisions related to stablecoin yield and what it characterizes as insufficient bank-equivalent regulation for stablecoin issuers, with prominent banking figures vowing to challenge the bill on the floor, because the CLARITY Act’s framework directly threatens traditional finance’s competitive position in payments. Layered on top is the simple arithmetic of the Senate, where advancing major legislation requires 60 votes to overcome a filibuster. With the governing party holding 53 seats, the bill needs at least seven crossover votes from the opposition, a structurally harder problem than the committee votes it has already cleared.
Each of these pressures, the trafficking backlash, the banking fight, and the vote math, has chipped away at the perceived likelihood of passage, and together they explain why the market has repriced the odds so sharply downward. That is also why the politics around the bill now matter as much as the market-structure text itself. The policy framework may be close, but the votes still have to survive a crowded field of objections before the bill reaches the president’s desk.
The provision at the center of the fight
It is worth dwelling on Section 604, because it has become the lightning rod, and understanding it clarifies why the bill suddenly looks more vulnerable. The provision would codify into law a principle that the crypto industry considers foundational: that developers who write the code for decentralized applications should not be treated as money transmitters and should not be held criminally liable for what users do with their software, in the same way that the makers of a web browser or an email protocol are not liable for crimes committed using those tools. To the industry, this is a basic protection for open-source software development, without which building decentralized systems in the U.S. becomes legally perilous. It is one of the reasons crypto firms have pushed so hard for the bill.
To critics, the same provision looks like a loophole. The anti-trafficking coalition’s argument is that by shielding decentralized-finance developers from money-transmitter obligations, the language could remove a layer of monitoring and accountability that helps authorities trace illicit funds, including money tied to human trafficking and other serious crimes. The dispute is, at its core, a genuine and difficult policy tension between two legitimate goals: protecting software developers and open innovation on one side, and preserving law-enforcement tools against financial crime on the other. That tension is precisely what makes the provision such an effective pressure point, because it cannot be dismissed as mere industry lobbying or partisan obstruction; it pits real concerns against each other.
For the bill’s prospects, the significance is that Section 604 gives opponents a substantive, morally weighted objection to rally around, and gives undecided senators a defensible reason to demand changes or withhold support. That is exactly the kind of friction that can stall legislation when the calendar is tight and the vote margin is thin. The bill does not only need supporters who like digital-asset clarity; it needs senators who are comfortable defending the developer-shield language under pressure from law-enforcement and anti-trafficking groups. That is a harder political task than simply explaining why tokens need a market-structure framework.
The legislative window is closing
Even setting aside the substantive fights, the CLARITY Act faces a brutal constraint that may matter more than any single objection: time. The legislative calendar for passing a controversial bill in 2026 is narrow and closing. The White House pushed for a finish around the July 4 holiday, a target that officials themselves conceded was tight, and the harder deadline is the August recess, after which campaigning for the autumn elections begins in earnest and the Senate’s floor schedule effectively closes to contested votes. Any realistic path to passage this year therefore runs through a small number of remaining legislative days, and every additional dispute consumes some of that dwindling supply.
Compounding the time pressure is a procedural step that the headline timeline often obscures: reconciliation between two Senate committees. The CLARITY Act’s framework splits jurisdiction over digital assets between the securities regulator and the commodities regulator, and because both the Senate Banking Committee and the Senate Agriculture Committee have claimed a stake, the Banking Committee’s version of the bill must be merged with the Agriculture Committee’s companion legislation before any floor vote can happen. That merger is not complete. The bill cleared the Banking Committee on a bipartisan vote in May and was placed on the Senate’s legislative calendar in early June, making it formally eligible for floor consideration, which is the closest it has ever been to becoming law.
But floor eligibility is not passage. To actually become law, the bill must still be reconciled across the two committees, survive a 60-vote floor vote, be reconciled again with the version the House passed, and then be signed by the president. Each of those steps takes time the calendar may not provide, and if the vote does not come before the recess, the political window that opened this opportunity may not reopen on the same terms. One senator who has championed the bill captured the stakes bluntly, saying they did not come this far to quit at the five-yard line, but the five-yard line in a closing window is exactly where bills die.
What passage would mean for XRP
For XRP holders, the entire point of tracking the CLARITY Act is what its outcome would do to the token, so it is worth being specific about both scenarios, beginning with passage. If the bill becomes law and codifies XRP’s digital-commodity status into federal statute, the most important effect would be the removal of the last meaningful layer of regulatory uncertainty, which is the gatekeeper that has kept large institutions cautious. XRP already enjoys more regulatory clarity than almost any major token after its legal battle ended and the joint classification treated it as a commodity, but that clarity rests on interpretive releases rather than statute, and a statute is far more durable. With permanent legal footing, the institutional capital that has waited on the sidelines, pension funds, asset managers, and the like, would have the certainty it needs to allocate.
The clearest channel for that capital is the spot ETF complex. Analysts at a major bank have projected that passage and the resulting clarity could drive several billion dollars of additional inflows into XRP exchange-traded funds, on the order of three to six times what those funds have gathered since launching. Flows of that magnitude would represent a demand shock large enough to push XRP through the resistance levels that have capped it and toward higher targets, with mainstream analyst forecasts in a passage scenario clustering in the several-dollar range by year-end. The more bullish projections reach higher still if a second catalyst, such as Ripple securing a Federal Reserve master account, were to follow.
The important caveat is that some of this may already be partly priced in, because the market has watched the bill advance for months, so the real question is not whether clarity helps XRP but how much of the waiting money actually moves once passage is law versus how much already has. Still, the directional case is clear: passage would be a powerful, fundamentally positive catalyst for XRP, the event that could finally connect the token’s long-promised institutional thesis to actual demand. It would also sit alongside another XRP catalyst in the spotlight, where holders have been trying to separate company-level events from token-level value. In this case, unlike many Ripple corporate developments, the statutory classification would apply directly to the token.
What failure or delay would mean
The other side of the ledger is just as consequential, and with the odds now below even, it deserves equal weight. If the CLARITY Act fails or stalls, whether by missing the legislative window, dying in the reconciliation process, or falling short of 60 votes on the floor, XRP would lose its one Ripple-specific catalyst, the single event distinguishing it from the rest of the market. In that scenario, XRP would likely revert to moving with Bitcoin rather than leading on its own regulatory story, surrendering the independent upside that the bill represented. The institutional flows that have supported XRP could reverse, the way weekly ETF inflows did earlier in the year when momentum faded, falling from over $200 million to a trickle within a month.
Without the statutory catalyst, Ripple’s institutional infrastructure would keep growing through stablecoins and fiat rails, but in a way that does not necessarily drive XRP token demand, leaving the familiar gap between corporate progress and token price intact. That is XRP’s other open question: whether Ripple’s wins translate into XRP demand, or whether stablecoins and company-level infrastructure capture most of the value. If the CLARITY Act fails, that question becomes even more important because the regulatory unlock would no longer be there to carry the near-term thesis. XRP would then need ETF flows, ledger usage, and broader crypto risk appetite to do the work instead.
The price implications of failure are meaningful. Analysts have suggested that in a no-bill scenario, XRP could slip back toward the lower end of its range, with some pointing to support around the $1.20 to $1.30 area and warning that a break of the key technical floor on a broader market sell-off could open a path toward materially lower levels with little support in between. A bank that projected large inflows on passage had already trimmed its XRP target on the assumption of a delayed bill rather than a failed one, illustrating how much of the token’s valuation has been riding on this single legislative outcome. That is why the price levels at stake matter: the legal catalyst and the technical chart are now feeding into each other.
The sharpest risk is not merely that the bill fails this year but that failure pushes it out of reach entirely, since a missed 2026 window could shelve the effort for years if the political configuration that enabled it does not recur. For XRP, that would mean losing not just a near-term catalyst but the central pillar of its independent investment case, throwing the token back onto Bitcoin’s coattails and onto the slow, uncertain process of turning network usage into token demand without the regulatory unlock.
The priced-in problem
A subtler issue complicates both scenarios and deserves its own attention, because it shapes how XRP might actually react to news: the question of how much of the CLARITY Act’s effect is already in the price. Markets are forward-looking, and the bill’s advance has been the most-watched regulatory story in crypto for the better part of a year, which means XRP’s current price already embeds some probability of passage. This creates a genuine puzzle for holders. If passage is partly priced in, then the actual event, should it come, might produce a smaller pop than the headline suggests, as the market has already bought the rumor and could sell the news.
Conversely, if the market has grown skeptical and priced the bill closer to the current 42% odds, then a clear passage could still surprise to the upside by forcing a repricing toward certainty. This is why XRP has traded in a range even as the bill progressed: each catalyst has been priced as a possibility instead of a fact, because a proof-of-concept settlement is priced as a proof of concept until it becomes recurring volume, an ETF is priced on the flows it actually attracts instead of the flows it might, and a legislative catalyst is priced on the probability of passage, which for the CLARITY Act has stayed well short of certainty. A token sitting on a stack of maybes trades like a token sitting on a stack of maybes: range-bound, reactive, and quick to sell the news. That is the practical problem facing XRP now.
The practical implication for holders is that the falling odds are informative in two directions. They lower the probability the market assigns to the positive catalyst, which is bearish, but they also mean that less of the good news is now priced in, which paradoxically increases the potential upside surprise if the bill does pass against the odds. The cleanest way to read XRP right now is as a token whose price reflects a market that has grown genuinely uncertain about its central catalyst. That makes both the downside of failure and the upside of surprise passage larger than they would be if the outcome were close to settled.
What holders should watch
For an XRP holder trying to navigate a catalyst that has become harder to handicap, the analysis points to a focused set of signals worth tracking over the coming weeks. The first and most important is simply whether a floor vote gets scheduled before the August recess, because the closing window is the binding constraint, and the absence of a scheduled vote as the recess approaches would be a strong signal that 2026 passage is slipping away. The progress of the committee reconciliation between the Banking and Agriculture versions is a related early indicator, since the floor vote cannot happen until that merger is done. The second signal is the trajectory of the opposition, particularly whether the Section 604 trafficking objection gains traction with undecided senators or whether sponsors find a way to address it, because that fight has the potential to either stall the bill or, if resolved, clear a path.
The third thing to watch is the prediction-market odds themselves, which have proven to be a useful real-time gauge of the bill’s perceived chances and which will move as developments unfold; a recovery back toward the sixties or seventies would signal renewed momentum, while a further slide would confirm the pessimism. Alongside the legislative signals, holders should keep an eye on the observable market data that will register the outcome regardless of the politics: ETF flows, which would surge on passage and stall on failure, and XRP’s behavior around its key technical levels, particularly whether it holds the support that the bear case threatens. The stablecoin fight also matters because it is one of the pressure points inside the bill, and the stablecoin rules in the bill are part of why banks and crypto firms are fighting so hard over the final text.
The honest synthesis is that the CLARITY Act has gone from a likely catalyst to a genuine coin flip, and with it XRP’s near-term path has become a binary bet on a contested vote in a closing window. Passage would be a powerful positive catalyst capable of unlocking institutional demand; failure would strip XRP of its defining catalyst and throw it back onto Bitcoin’s movements. At 42% and falling, the market is telling holders that the outcome it once treated as probable is now anything but. The next few weeks of the legislative calendar are likely to decide which way XRP breaks.
Frequently asked questions
What is the CLARITY Act and why does it matter for XRP?
The CLARITY Act is a crypto market-structure bill that would codify the classification of tokens like XRP as digital commodities into federal law. For XRP, this matters enormously because the token’s current commodity status rests on interpretive regulatory releases instead of statute, which a future administration could in principle reverse. Writing that status into actual law would remove the last major source of regulatory uncertainty that keeps large institutions cautious, and analysts have projected that passage could unlock several billion dollars in additional XRP ETF inflows. It has been XRP’s single most important catalyst throughout 2026, which is why its odds of passing move the token.
Why did the CLARITY Act’s odds fall to 42%?
The odds fell from highs near 73% because of several problems converging at once. An anti-trafficking coalition attacked Section 604 of the bill, a provision shielding decentralized-finance developers from money-transmitter obligations, warning it could weaken tools against illicit finance. The banking lobby has fought provisions on stablecoin yield and regulation, while the Senate math is hard because advancing the bill requires 60 votes, meaning at least seven crossover votes from the opposition. Combined with a closing legislative calendar, these pressures made passage look far less certain, and prediction markets repriced the probability sharply downward to around 42%.
What happens to XRP if the CLARITY Act passes?
Passage would remove the last layer of regulatory uncertainty by writing XRP’s commodity status into durable federal law, giving cautious institutions the certainty they need to allocate. The clearest effect would flow through spot ETFs, with analysts projecting several billion dollars of additional inflows, three to six times what the funds have gathered so far. That demand could push XRP through its resistance levels toward analyst targets in the several-dollar range by year-end, with higher projections if a second catalyst like a Federal Reserve master account followed. The main caveat is that some of this may already be priced in, so the size of the reaction depends on how much waiting money actually moves.
What happens to XRP if the bill fails?
Failure or delay would strip XRP of its one Ripple-specific catalyst, likely sending it back to moving with Bitcoin instead of leading on its own regulatory story. Institutional ETF flows could reverse, as they did earlier in the year when momentum faded, and analysts have suggested XRP could slip toward support around $1.20 to $1.30, with a break of its key floor on a broader sell-off opening a path to materially lower levels. The sharpest risk is that a missed 2026 window could shelve the effort for years. That would cost XRP not just a near-term catalyst but the central pillar of its independent investment case.
When is the deadline for the CLARITY Act?
The practical deadline is the Senate’s August recess, after which election-year campaigning effectively closes the floor schedule to contested votes. The White House had pushed for a finish around the July 4 holiday, a target officials conceded was tight. Before any floor vote, the Senate Banking Committee’s version must be reconciled with the Senate Agriculture Committee’s companion bill, a merger that is not yet complete, and after a floor vote the bill would still need to be reconciled with the House-passed version and signed by the president. If the vote does not happen before the recess, 2026 passage becomes very unlikely.
Is the CLARITY Act’s effect already priced into XRP?
Partly, which complicates how the token may react. The bill’s advance has been the most-watched regulatory story in crypto for nearly a year, so XRP’s price already embeds some probability of passage, which is part of why the token has stayed range-bound: each catalyst gets priced as a possibility instead of a fact. If passage is partly priced in, the actual event could produce a smaller move than expected. But with odds now down at 42%, less of the good news is currently priced in, which paradoxically increases the potential upside surprise if the bill passes against the odds, while also reflecting greater downside risk if it fails.
This article is information, not investment advice. Legislative timelines, prediction-market odds, prices, and analyst projections reflect reporting available as of June 28, 2026, and can change quickly. The status and prospects of the CLARITY Act are uncertain and contested. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy or sell XRP or any security. Verify current developments from primary sources and consider your own circumstances before making any decision.
The attacker working through Coldcard-generated keys is now emptying wallets worth a few thousand dollars each.
Galaxy Research flagged a third wave of sweeps early Sunday, roughly 208 bitcoin drained from 1,912 addresses between Friday midday and Saturday morning UTC.
That is just over a tenth of a bitcoin per victim. The July 30 opening wave averaged close to a full coin, 1,083 bitcoin from 1,196 addresses in 41 minutes.
Observed losses across all three waves now total 1,367 bitcoin, nearly $89 million, from 4,585 addresses.
Wave three sends each victim’s coins to its own destination rather than the handful of shared collector addresses that made the first two easy to map, and parks them in pay-to-witness-script-hash outputs, a format that can carry multisignature or timelock conditions, instead of the plain single-key outputs used before.
It batched an average of six victims into each sweep where wave one took exactly one at a time, and it scanned only the default derivation path, the standard branch of the key tree a wallet checks first, instead of testing several branches per seed.
Perhaps due to the quickly re-escalating tension in the Middle East, the cryptocurrency market has posted fresh losses over the past few hours, with BTC dropping to $62,000 after failing to reclaim the $63,000 support during the day.
XRP was not spared, as it just slipped below $1.05. The asset was rejected at $1.20 during the mid-July rally after the favorable US inflation data for June, and eventually lost the coveted $1.10 support. Now, it fights for the last line of defense before the bulls would have to defend the $1.00 zone.
Popular analyst EGRAG CRYPTO outlined the significance of the $1.05 level, calling it the ‘battlefield’ region. Although he noted earlier today that the cross-border token had managed to maintain that level, he acknowledged the predominantly bearish structure of lower highs on the 4-hour chart.
The short-term path of recovery would be a successful defense of $1.05 before XRP can bounce above $1.083 and eventually reclaim the $1.10 level, which now acts as resistance.
EGRAG laid out an even more promising road ahead for the asset if it manages to continue its recovery, with the “major price target” set at $1.30.
However, a decisive breakdown below $1.05 would essentially mean that XRP will head toward the notable liquidity zone at around $1.00, he warned.
Mikybull Crypto also believes XRP has the strength to stage a surprising comeback. The analyst claimed that the asset’s bullish reversal run is currently loading despite the negative outlook.
His long-term chart compares the current market structure with the one from two years ago when XRP was highly compressed at around $0.60. Once it broke out the upper boundary, though, it rocketed to a fresh all-time high within less than a year.
“Before the last run, I screamed for you to buy at a crazy discount. The opportunity is presenting again,” he said now.
History is not on XRP’s side at the moment, though, as August has been quite a painful month for the asset. As reported earlier today, the cross-border token was deep in the red in all four previous editions.
The post XRP Price Dips to ‘Battlefield’ Zone, but Analysts See Major Reversal Opportunity appeared first on CryptoPotato.
Pi Coin (PI) rose 8% on Saturday to $0.0870. The move pushed the token onto CoinGecko’s trending list, days before a hard deadline for Pi Network.
Nodes are the computers that check Pi transactions. The people who run them have until August 11 to install an update. Nodes that miss it get cut off.
Why Pi Coin Is Trending Again
CoinGecko ranked PI second on its trending board on Saturday. Most other coins on that list were falling. Pi Coin was one of the few going up.
The bigger picture is less kind. While PI has gained 7% over the past week, it is still down 25% over the past month. The token is worth about $957 million in total, making it the 67th largest coin.
Trading stayed thin. Pi Network market data shows roughly $8.6 million changed hands in 24 hours.
What the August 11 Deadline Means
Protocol v26 is the latest step in a long chain of updates that started at version 19. Pi says it makes smart contracts safer. It also improves how the network stores data and talks to other blockchains.
“Protocol 26 is a major milestone ahead of the final planned upgrade, Protocol 27. With 8 successful upgrades completed over the past few months, these final two upgrades will bring the network up to date with the latest protocol features, improvements, and functionality,” the team noted.
Follow us on X to get the latest news as it happens
Only node operators need to act. People who mine Pi on their phones do not. Pi lists every step on its node page.
Pi nodes agree on transactions in small trusted groups, a design borrowed from Stellar. The July 22 Protocol v25 rollout added the cryptography that privacy apps need.
Why Pi Coin Rallies Keep Fading
Traders have seen this before. PI jumped 24% ahead of the July 22 update. It handed the gain back once the day arrived. The Protocol 24 mainnet upgrade in June ended the same way.
Zoom out and it looks worse. PI hit a record low of $0.0710 on July 14. It now sits 79% below where it traded a year ago.
New supply is the main drag. PiScan data cited last month showed about 1.71 billion PI unlocking over the next year. That is a heavy load for a market trading under $10 million a day.
Protocol v27 is the last planned update. Whether August 11 shifts the PI price forecast outlook comes down to one thing. Buyers have to show up faster than the new coins do.
The post Pi Coin Defies Market Trend Before Key Deadline: Will the 10% Bounce Hold? appeared first on BeInCrypto.
Who are possible challengers to FIFA President Gianni Infantino?
Infantino was originally expected to easily retain his position at the helm of FIFA in March 2027.
Now, with public calls for review into his leadership, potential rivals may feel emboldened.
“FIFA is full of sharks, and there’s no question that many of them can smell blood. Infantino’s election in 2027, which seemed like a sure bet only a few days ago, is now an open question,” Boykoff says.
Challengers for his role must submit their candidacies by Nov. 18, and there has already been some speculation as to who might make a bid.
Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa, president of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), was defeated by Infantino in 2016, the current administrator’s first term, but he could return a decade later as a frontrunner. He called Infantino’s investment proposal and his failure to consult AFC on it “totally unacceptable,” putting the two publicly at odds.
We will begin with the mandatory disclaimer, as we are well aware that historical performance does not guarantee similar moves in the future. However, history does tend to rhyme, and that’s what happened in July for BTC.
The question is: will August follow suit, as the month has not been kind to the largest cryptocurrency, especially the last four editions.
July Brought Some Gains
Before we explore what happened in July, here’s a brief outlook of the painful June, which set the stage for a rebound during the seventh month of the year. The 2026 edition of June became the most violent in terms of price moves for the cryptocurrency in precisely four years. It tumbled by 20.48% in 2026 compared to 37.28% in June 2022.
As such, it was almost expected that July would be a better month. History was also on BTC’s side as 9 out of the last 11 were in the green. However, the start was actually quite surprising as bitcoin dipped below $58,000 on July 1 for the first time in nearly two years.
The bears quickly lost control, though, and the asset reclaimed the coveted $60,000 level within a day or two. It wasn’t the most volatile of months, but BTC still managed to post some gains and peaked on July 21 at $67,000. This became its highest price tag in two months.
However, it was rejected there despite the softer-than-expected inflation data for June and the fact that the Fed refused to hike interest rates last week. Thus, bitcoin ended the month at under $64,000, which was still a 9% monthly increase.
Your Move, August
As popular analyst Ali Martinez put it yesterday: August hasn’t been kind to bitcoin. In fact, the last four have all been in the red, posting losses of 13.88%, 11.29%, 8.6%, and 6.49%, respectively. The silver lining is that the declines become less violent over time.
The broader August perspective is still deeply negative, though. Only three out of the last 12 editions have been in the green, with 2017 standing out as the most bullish one on record. At the time, BTC rocketed by over 65%, but it was a different time and a vastly different market phase.
For now, BTC enters August 2026 with lots of uncertainty not only within the industry itself, where interest has dwindled lately, but on a macro perspective as well. The war in the Middle East continues, and the one between Ukraine and Russia too, while inflation remains an issue, and Trump’s controversial actions tend to halt each breakout attempt in its tracks.
The post Bitcoin Rebounded in July, but Bears Target an August Pullback appeared first on CryptoPotato.
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A crypto-industry-backed political action committee affiliate has intensified its advertising push ahead of next week’s Michigan Republican primary, according to the latest Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings. Protect Progress PAC, which the filings indicate is funded largely by contributions from cryptocurrency companies Ripple Labs and Coinbase, has spent more than $2 million on media to influence the contest in Michigan’s 13th Congressional District.
The most recent updates, filed as of Thursday, show the committee ramping up spending in support of U.S. Representative Shri Thanedar while also funding opposition to his Democratic challenger, Donavan McKinney. The renewed disclosures come shortly after earlier reporting showed the PAC had already ramped up its buy—effectively doubling its reported ad spending from the prior week.
Key takeaways
- FEC filings show Protect Progress PAC has spent over $2 million on media for Michigan’s 13th district primary race.
- New disclosures add $884,240 to advertisements supporting Shri Thanedar and more than $150,000 to ads opposing Donavan McKinney.
- The PAC’s funding is described in the filings as being largely backed by cryptocurrency companies Ripple Labs and Coinbase.
- Thanedar’s legislative record includes support for crypto-related bills such as the GENIUS Act and the CLARITY Act.
- Protect Progress is an affiliate of Fairshake, a major outside spender in U.S. elections tied to crypto industry policy goals.
Michigan’s 13th district: Protect Progress increases ad buys
According to FEC disclosures accessed via the commission’s docquery system, Protect Progress PAC reported spending more than a combined $2 million on media in connection with Michigan Representative Shri Thanedar and his Democratic primary contest against Donavan McKinney.
As of Thursday, the filings reflect a further escalation: compared with what the PAC had already reported spending a week earlier, the committee’s latest report effectively doubled its media spending. The additional outlay includes $884,240 dedicated to ads supporting Thanedar and more than $150,000 aimed at opposing McKinney.
The Michigan primary is scheduled for Tuesday, but the filings underscore that the committee and its network have been willing to deploy substantial resources well before Election Day. Similar patterns have been visible across multiple congressional races during the 2026 cycle, according to the article’s referenced coverage and FEC-based reporting.
Why the race is drawing crypto-linked political money
Thanedar’s congressional record is at the center of the narrative around why outside groups see his candidacy as important for crypto policy. During his time in the House, he voted in favor of the stablecoin-focused GENIUS Act and supported the legislative push for clearer digital asset market structure—the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act, which has been discussed in the Senate.
He also cosponsored the Promoting Innovation in Blockchain Development Act, an effort aimed at protecting developers. Supporters of crypto policy reform often point to such measures as steps toward a more predictable regulatory environment, while critics argue the industry has too much influence over the political process.
For voters watching the contest, the spending escalation suggests the primary is being treated as more than a local political test—it is being framed by donors and advocacy networks as part of a broader strategy to influence which lawmakers back specific digital asset legislation.
McKinney’s response and the broader allegations over crypto influence
McKinney has publicly characterized the ad push as a payoff for political favors. In a July 21 statement related to the PAC spending, he said “the crypto lobby is paying my opponent back for helping Trump make over $1 billion since taking office,” according to a video shared on his campaign’s Facebook page.
That comment appears to reference the U.S. President’s disclosures about crypto-related earnings, including a figure cited in earlier reporting referenced by the article—more than $1.4 billion from crypto investments in 2025—along with concerns raised by Democrats that Trump could be using his role to profit through policies such as GENIUS.
While those claims are rooted in political argument rather than direct proof of intent tied to the specific Michigan ads, they highlight a recurring tension in U.S. crypto politics: outside spending may be framed by industry-aligned PACs as policy support, while opponents often describe it as evidence of undue influence.
Cointelegraph reports that it reached out to both Thanedar’s and McKinney’s campaigns for comment on the PAC expenditures but did not receive an immediate response.
Fairshake’s affiliates: national momentum in multiple primaries
Protect Progress PAC is an affiliate of Fairshake, a political network that has become one of the most prominent outside spenders linked to crypto industry policy goals. Fairshake was responsible for spending more than $170 million across the 2024 election cycle through media buys supporting candidates it viewed as aligned with crypto-friendly regulation, as summarized in the article.
The article also notes that affiliates have already deployed millions of dollars in 2026 races beyond Michigan, pointing to activity in states including Texas and Illinois. In addition, it cites Public Citizen reporting from June that Fairshake and its affiliates accounted for more than $82 million out of roughly $189 million deployed by crypto companies during the 2026 election cycle.
Fairshake itself reportedly listed holding a $193 million “war chest” as of January, according to figures referenced in the piece. Taken together with the Michigan disclosures, the pattern suggests a sustained approach: deploy substantial resources early enough to shape narrative and voter attention around specific legislative priorities.
The article further describes similar affiliate activity in other congressional primaries. It says Defend American Jobs PAC spent more than $65,000 on media in Washington’s 4th congressional district to support a Republican candidate, with Washington holding primaries on the same day as Michigan.
In Alabama, scheduled primaries on Aug. 11 are also described as a focus for Fairshake-linked spending. FEC filings cited in the article indicate Defend American Jobs PAC spent more than $511,000 on media supporting Jerry Carl Jr., a Republican who represented Alabama’s 1st congressional district from 2021 to 2025.
For readers tracking the cycle, these parallel contests illustrate how crypto-aligned PAC affiliates appear to treat primary elections as strategic targets—places where candidate positioning on digital asset policy could be determined before general election dynamics begin.
What to watch as Michigan’s primary approaches
With Michigan’s 13th district primary scheduled for Tuesday, the key question is whether Protect Progress’s latest ad surge will further alter voter perceptions or turnout in the remaining days. More broadly, the filings reinforce that crypto-linked political spending is not limited to high-profile general election races—affiliates are actively contesting primaries with resources intended to influence policy direction well after election season announcements fade.
Binance founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ) says this bear market has no shortage of money. Plenty of it is hunting for somewhere to go.
Elsewhere, Social Capital founder Chamath Palihapitiya said where he thinks it should land. Not in artificial intelligence (AI) chips.
The Bear Market Has Money. It Is Not Buying Crypto
CZ did not say where the money should go, but acknowledged that there was a lot of liquidity floating despite the bear market.
The numbers show why it is not going into crypto. Bitcoin (BTC) trades near $63,037. It is down 45% in a year. That is almost exactly half its October 6 record.
Chamath Is Buying Land, Not Chips
Meanwhile, the Social Capital founder Chamath Palihapitiya, a venture capitalist, entrepreneur, and investor, buys three things at once. Land, a power connection, and an empty building to hold the computers.
“LPS (Land Power Shell) is still the most obvious and fastest path to cash on cash returns,” Palihapitiya wrote.
Palihapitiya is a former senior executive at Facebook (now Meta), a renowned SPAC sponsor, and former minority owner of the Golden State Warriors.
His reason is simple. Towns keep blocking data centers. Every site that already has power gets rarer.
The numbers back him. Data Center Watch counted at least 75 US projects blocked or delayed in early 2026, worth about $130 billion.It was the worst quarter on record. Opposition groups doubled and now operate in 49 states.
Politicians joined in. More than 300 state data center bills were filed in six weeks. Maine missed becoming the first state to ban them outright by one House vote.
Why He Quit the Chip Business
He says he helped start Groq in 2016. Nvidia licensed Groq’s technology last December. The deal was not exclusive. Groq founder Jonathan Ross moved to Nvidia.
Neither company gave a price, but Palihapitiya says $20 billion. Still, he would not do it again as chips have to run too fast, factories have to be too exact, and a startup cannot get enough memory.
How Much Power He Has Bought
Palihapitiya says he and his partner Anita Vlallian have acquired almost six gigawatts (GW). It arrives in stages through 2029.
One deal shows the going rate. Nasdaq-listed TeraWulf used to mine Bitcoin. In July it leased a 401-megawatt site in Hawesville, Kentucky, to Anthropic. The lease runs 20 years and should bring in about $19 billion.
Here is the part that proves his point. That site is not built yet. Power starts flowing in late 2027 and reaches full load in early 2028.
The money is committed anyway. Palihapitiya holds roughly 15 times that much capacity. His is not leased out yet, so the figure shows the size of his bet, not its value.
However, miners got there first, and already own cheap power, land with grid hookups, and empty sheds. Coinbase chief executive Brian Armstrong disputed the mining warning in July.
What Could Go Wrong
Jordi Visser of 22V Research says easy money is over in AI. He expects about 30% a year now.
The land bet also needs the protests to keep coming. If towns start approving data centers again, the scarcity goes away.
TeraWulf’s $19 billion is a forecast too. Its own filing calls it expected revenue.
CZ is right. The money is out there. The question is whether it buys power lines or comes back to Bitcoin and crypto markets.
The post CZ Says Bear Market Money is Hunting, Social Capital Founder Says Skip AI Chips appeared first on BeInCrypto.
Trading volume for tokenized stocks and ETFs surged 288% to a record $11.3 billion in July, though most of the increase came from a single Binance-linked token.
Binance bStocks accounted for $9.41 billion, or 83.3% of the total, according to CoinDesk Data’s latest Stablecoins & Tokenized Assets report. A bStocks token, QQQB, tracking Invesco’s QQQ ETF, generated $9.27 billion alone, equivalent to roughly 82% of all tokenized-equity volume.
Excluding QQQB, July volume was roughly $2.03 billion, about 30% below the market’s implied June total of $2.91 billion. xStocks volume dropped to $335 million from $1.55 billion, while Ondo recorded $792 million and Backpack $479 million, the report details.
QQQB began trading on Binance on June 30 with zero maker fees through Aug. 31. Binance also began counting stocks and bStocks volume at three times its traded value for some users seeking higher VIP tiers on July 23, though the multiplier does not alter actual trading volume.
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