The calm before the storm? Markets are eerily quiet...

Everything looks calm. That's exactly the problem. The SEC canceled two crypto meetings. XRP is at $1. The 30-year yield hit its highest since 2001. Have a good weekend. ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ SPONSORED BY Friday, August 14, 2026   The remarkable thing about this week’s market is how calm it looks on the surface. Bitcoin’s implied volatility index has fallen back to a 2026 low. Wall Street’s fear gauge is at its lowest since January. Bond, gold and oil volatility are all falling too. Synchronized calm across every major asset class at once — the contrarian read of which is: this is precisely when you should be alert. The underlying picture for crypto is considerably less serene. The SEC canceled its planned Reg Crypto meeting, gave no new date, and is delaying its “innovation exemption” for tokenized securities after pressure from the White House — which doesn’t want to complicate Clarity Act negotiations — and from Wall Street’s trade groups. BTC ETFs flipped to outflows this week, reversing last week’s $853 million inflow run. The 30-year Treasury yield drew 5.22% at auction — the highest since 2001. And XRP is teetering at exactly $1. Have a good weekend. Read today’s full report → Market snapshot As of 8:30am EST Asset Price 24h BTC $62,920 −1.39% ETH $1,895 −0.80% SOL $72.40 −1.60% XRP $1.00 −1.10% Prices approximate. Visit coindesk.com/price for live data. A message from RealFi Most stablecoins leave capital sitting still. RealFi is different. It connects on-chain capital to real-world markets like US Treasuries, money market funds, and private credit. Real transparency. Real impact. RealFi. RealFi is launching August 2026. Join the Testnet now at realfi.co Find out more CoinDesk Disclosure: The information contained in this newsletter, and any information linked through the items contained herein, is not intended to provide sufficient information to form the basis for an investment decision. You should seek additional information regarding the merits and risks of investing in any cryptocurrency or digital assets. L1.co Disclosure: This material is for informational purposes only, and the content contained herein should not be considered investment advice or a solicitation, offer, or recommendation to sell or buy any asset, strategy, or product. Investing in digital assets involves a high degree of risk, including the loss of principal. What matters today Markets   Story 1 of 3 Volatility exits crypto and tradfi markets, even as U.S.–Iran risks linger and sovereign debt rises. Scan the macro landscape and the list of concerns is substantial: continued U.S.–Iran escalation, mounting sovereign debt, rising bond yields, and a crypto regulatory picture that just got worse. Yet implied volatility across every major asset class is falling simultaneously. Bitcoin’s BVIV has dropped back to a year-to-date low of around 36%, reversing a minor pop to 38% earlier in the week. Wall Street’s VIX is at its lowest level since January. The Treasury market’s MOVE index sits near the bottom of its multi-month range. Gold and oil volatility indexes are also falling. The efficient-market reading is that markets are always right — calm prices reflect all available information, and the calm is to be trusted. The contrarian reading is that this synchronized low-volatility environment is precisely when large moves become most dangerous: when everyone expects nothing to happen, leverage builds, positions concentrate, and any shock gets amplified through dealer hedging. The tape will determine which view is right. For now, the calm prevails — but with a $25 billion 30-year Treasury auction drawing a 5.22% yield on Thursday (the highest since 2001), U.S. naval blockades of Iranian ports described as potentially continuing “indefinitely,” and BTC ETFs registering $333 million in net outflows so far this week, the fragility is real even if the fear gauges say otherwise. The MOVE index’s decline is particularly significant because Treasury volatility underpins global finance: when bond markets become turbulent, the shock typically spreads across all risk assets including crypto. Read more → Policy   Story 2 of 3 The SEC just delayed two crypto rules in one night. Here’s why Wall Street and the White House both said slow down. In the span of 24 hours, the SEC retreated on two separate crypto regulatory initiatives that had been expected this month. The agency abruptly canceled its planned Friday open meeting on “Reg Crypto” — a parallel rulemaking effort to create fundraising rules for token projects — offering no new date. Separately, it is again delaying its “innovation exemption,” a rule that would make it easier for firms to issue and trade tokenized securities on blockchain networks under existing law. The exemption had been expected to be released in part as early as this week. Two distinct coalitions killed the momentum. The White House worried the innovation exemption could “kick a hornet’s nest” while Congress is still negotiating the Clarity Act — the fear being that releasing an exemption creates new political fault lines that complicate the broader legislative push. SEC staff also became increasingly focused on whether the agency has completed the economic analysis and procedural steps required to legally justify such broad relief. On the Wall Street side, SIFMA — the trade group whose members include major broker-dealers and investment banks — argued that sweeping market-structure changes of this magnitude should go through formal notice-and-comment rulemaking, not through exemptions. The sticking point is how tokenized securities would interact with Regulation NMS, the framework that links prices across exchanges and requires best execution. If tokens trade on decentralized venues or automated market makers, the pricing and execution mechanics differ enough that existing rules become ambiguous. This is not the first delay: the exemption was also expected in May and did not materialize. Citi projects tokenized assets could be a $5.5 trillion market by 2030. The infrastructure is building — the NYSE and Nasdaq both have tokenization plans, and the DTCC processed its first live tokenized-securities trades last month — but the U.S. regulatory runway keeps getting pushed back. Read more → Markets   Story 3 of 3 A cluster of headwinds weighs on bitcoin. XRP teeters near $1. Bitcoin fell to around $62,900 on Friday as a cluster of negative developments hit simultaneously. Regulatory setbacks are leading: the Clarity Act stalled in the Senate, and the SEC’s cancellation of its Reg Crypto meeting plus the renewed delay to the innovation exemption removed two potential catalysts at once. Fund flows added to the pressure. Spot bitcoin ETFs have shed $333 million in net outflows so far this week, reversing last week’s $853 million inflow run and pushing the year-to-date outflow total beyond $4 billion. On a year-to-date basis investors have pulled out more than they put in, a sobering backdrop for the institutional demand narrative. The cost of capital is also rising: a $25 billion 30-year Treasury auction Thursday drew yields as high as 5.22%, the highest since 2001, making the opportunity cost of holding non-yielding bitcoin more expensive by the day. MSCI separately opened a consultation proposing to remove non-operating companies from its equity indices, naming Strategy and Metaplanet among those targeted — a move that would force index-tracking funds to sell those stocks and remove one of the largest pools of indirect bitcoin demand. XRP has somehow held on to $1.00, a line that, if broken, could prompt a wave of selling from holders who accumulated near this level in late 2024 anticipating Ripple’s legal victory. JPMorgan cut off its banking relationship with prediction market platform Polymarket, per the Financial Times. Tether completed its long-promised Big Four audit of its $180 billion USDT reserves, a milestone that had been demanded by regulators and institutional clients for years. 21Shares’ senior research strategist Matt Mena offered the bull case: crypto outperformed the S&P 500 and Nasdaq by 7.5 and 14.2 percentage points respectively in July, setting the stage for a potentially explosive fourth quarter where $100,000 bitcoin, $3,000 ether and $110 Solana come into view. Read more → CoinDesk Disclosure: The information contained in this newsletter, and any information linked through the items contained herein, is not intended to provide sufficient information to form the basis for an investment decision. You should seek additional information regarding the merits and risks of investing in any cryptocurrency or digital assets. L1.co Disclosure: This material is for informational purposes only, and the content contained herein should not be considered investment advice or a solicitation, offer, or recommendation to sell or buy any asset, strategy, or product. Investing in digital assets involves a high degree of risk, including the loss of principal. Crypto Daybook Americas: A newsletter from CoinDesk Were you forwarded this newsletter? Sign up here.  Copyright © 2026 CoinDesk, All rights reserved.  CoinDesk, Inc., 61 9th Avenue, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10011, USA Unsubscribe Manage preferences

Your 15% off pass to crypto's policy summit

Sept 22, Washington D.C. — where the crypto industry and Capitol Hill actually get things done. Headlines readers save with exclusive code HEADLINES.                                                                        September 22, 2026  ·  Washington, D.C. The event where private and public sectors meet on crypto regulation and policy. CoinDesk Policy & Regulation brings together senior policymakers, regulators, general counsels, and compliance leaders for a single, curated day of conversation at Convene Hamilton Square. With 250+ public and private sector leaders and five hours of dedicated networking, this is a unique opportunity to evaluate and ultimately shape the future of crypto market structure that supports a vibrant, secure and healthy future for the digital economy. As a CoinDesk Headlines reader, you've got an exclusive 15% off your registration. Use code HEADLINES at checkout. Register Now → Exclusive offer for Headlines readers HEADLINES Use code HEADLINES at checkout for 15% off your registration to CoinDesk Policy & Regulation, September 22, Washington D.C. Claim Your Discount → See all of CoinDesk’s newsletters    CoinDesk, Inc., 61 9th Avenue, 5th Floor, New York,NY,10011,USA, Unsubscribe Manage Preferences   Copyright © 2026 CoinDesk, All rights reserved.

Two companies. $10 billion in bitcoin losses.

Strategy and Metaplanet are sitting on $10 billion in paper losses. Inflation was tamer than expected — but don't be fooled. And crypto trading hit a 32-month low in July. ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ SPONSORED BY Thursday, August 13, 2026   The two largest publicly listed bitcoin treasury companies are sitting on combined paper losses of nearly $10 billion — enough, if tokenized, to rank as the 11th largest digital asset in the world, just behind Dogecoin. Strategy carries $8.2 billion in unrealized losses on its 576,000 BTC; Tokyo-listed Metaplanet holds $1.5 billion in losses on 43,000 BTC. Both funded those purchases largely with debt. Yesterday’s CPI reading looked tame on the surface — but energy prices temporarily masked stickier underlying pressures in food and services, and the dollar barely moved, offering bitcoin little support. BTC remains choppy just below $64,000 while the S&P 500 makes record highs. A $1 million options trade is nonetheless betting BTC clears $65,500 by Saturday. PPI data lands today. Read today’s full report → Market snapshot As of 8am EST Asset Price 24h BTC $63,497 −0.89% ETH $1,908 +0.50% SOL $73.60 −0.70% XRP $1.01 −0.80% Prices approximate. Visit coindesk.com/price for live data. A message from RealFi Most stablecoins leave capital sitting still. RealFi is different. It connects on-chain capital to real-world markets like US Treasuries, money market funds, and private credit. Real transparency. Real impact. RealFi. RealFi is launching August 2026. Join the Testnet now at realfi.co Find out more CoinDesk Disclosure: The information contained in this newsletter, and any information linked through the items contained herein, is not intended to provide sufficient information to form the basis for an investment decision. You should seek additional information regarding the merits and risks of investing in any cryptocurrency or digital assets. L1.co Disclosure: This material is for informational purposes only, and the content contained herein should not be considered investment advice or a solicitation, offer, or recommendation to sell or buy any asset, strategy, or product. Investing in digital assets involves a high degree of risk, including the loss of principal. What matters today Markets   Story 1 of 3 Strategy and Metaplanet’s bitcoin losses highlight the risk of going all-in on one token. The two largest publicly listed bitcoin treasury companies are sitting on combined paper losses that, if tokenized, would rank as the 11th largest digital asset by market cap — just behind Dogecoin and well ahead of ONDO, ZEC and AAVE. Strategy reported an unrealized loss of $8.2 billion on its 576,000 BTC last month. Early Thursday, Tokyo-listed Metaplanet disclosed a paper loss of $1.5 billion on its 43,000 BTC as of end-June. The combined $9.7 billion underscores a structural argument against the single-asset treasury model: both companies have relied heavily on debt issuance to fund bitcoin purchases, creating an obligation to service borrowing costs regardless of where the price goes. That structure is not fundamentally different from a government borrowing heavily to fund investments that fail to generate adequate returns — both lead to high indebtedness relative to income. Metaplanet separately denied a report that it sold $320 million of bitcoin, calling it unfounded. The Japanese firm also unveiled “BitBonds” — a continuous bond-issuance program — with a first sale of four privately placed series worth $1.3 million. Brazil’s largest bitcoin treasury firm meanwhile announced plans to launch an ETF with 95% of assets allocated to Strategy’s STRC preferred stock — adding another layer of leverage concentration to the ecosystem. FxPro’s Alex Kuptsikevich offered the contrarian view: BTC’s decline may have run its course, with the price near the 200-week moving average and the previous cycle’s all-time high of around $64,000 — the level where the 2021 bull market peaked. Three years ago, bitcoin bottomed near $20,000, close to the 2017 cycle peak. The pattern suggests the current range could represent structural support rather than a prelude to further losses. Read more → Exchange Review, supported by Gate Story 2 of 3 CEX volumes hit a 32-month low in July as DEX market share reaches an all-time high. Combined spot and derivatives volumes on centralized exchanges fell 23.9% to $3.76 trillion in July — the lowest monthly total since November 2023, according to CoinDesk Research’s monthly Exchange Review. Spot volumes dropped 31.2% to $727 billion, their lowest since October 2023, while derivatives declined 21.9% to $3.03 trillion. The declines coincided with range-bound crypto price action, subdued investor appetite relative to equities, and the departure of several centralized venues including BitMEX. Against that backdrop, decentralized exchanges captured a record 19.5% share of total spot trading — the highest ever measured — even as DEX spot volumes fell 9.8% in absolute terms to $176 billion. CEX volumes fell faster, amplifying DEX’s relative position. Uniswap led DEX spot activity at $53.4 billion, followed by PancakeSwap at $18.5 billion. In derivatives, Binance extended its dominance with spot market share rising to 26.9% (highest since January) and derivatives market share climbing to 45.8% — its fifth consecutive monthly gain. The fastest-growing segment was RWA perpetual trading, which surged 47.8% to a record $460 billion. Gate ranked third in RWA perps with 4.39% market share and held the second-largest share of futures open interest among retail exchanges at 11.2%, trailing only Binance at 18.5%. Futures open interest fell a modest 1.26% to $80.2 billion, proving more resilient than spot as traders maintained directional bets even as headline activity shrank. Read more → Markets   Story 3 of 3 U.S. inflation is stickier than July’s mild CPI reading suggests. Wednesday’s CPI report showed headline inflation slowed in July, with the month-on-month figure coming in at 0.3% against expectations of 0.1%, and the annual rate declining slightly. But the surface reading masked stickier underlying dynamics. Macroeconomic writer Mike “Mish” Shedlock argued in a detailed breakdown that temporary drops in energy and gasoline prices suppressed the headline number, while food prices are systematically undercounted by Bureau of Labor Statistics methodology, and the index ignores key housing costs including property taxes, insurance and home prices. The result: the dollar barely moved, and bitcoin received little support from the report. BTC continued trading choppy below $64,000. The combination of last week’s weaker-than-expected jobs data and an in-line CPI has raised the probability of a Fed rate pause at the September meeting to 63%, making today’s producer price index (PPI) the next key catalyst. Smaller coins found their moment: OKB, MNT and VVV each gained 6% or more in 24 hours, ranking among the best performers in the top 100. But bitcoin dominance held steady at around 59% — the gains came from fresh interest in those tokens, not from a rotation out of majors. A notable options trade was spotted: a large buyer spent roughly $1.07 million to purchase call options on 4,054 BTC at a $65,500 strike expiring Saturday August 15 — a bet that BTC climbs $1,700–$2,000 from current levels in under 48 hours. Jackson Hole — where central bank governors make their annual policy pronouncements — arrives next week and will be the next major macro signal for all risk assets. Read more → CoinDesk Disclosure: The information contained in this newsletter, and any information linked through the items contained herein, is not intended to provide sufficient information to form the basis for an investment decision. You should seek additional information regarding the merits and risks of investing in any cryptocurrency or digital assets. L1.co Disclosure: This material is for informational purposes only, and the content contained herein should not be considered investment advice or a solicitation, offer, or recommendation to sell or buy any asset, strategy, or product. Investing in digital assets involves a high degree of risk, including the loss of principal. Crypto Daybook Americas: A newsletter from CoinDesk Were you forwarded this newsletter? Sign up here.  Copyright © 2026 CoinDesk, All rights reserved.  CoinDesk, Inc., 61 9th Avenue, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10011, USA Unsubscribe Manage preferences