Ether is the only major where holders are underwater.

Low vol doesn't mean low risk. The S&P added crypto's entire market cap this month. And ether is the only major trading below what holders paid for it. ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Thursday, August 6, 2026   Bitcoin’s 30-day implied volatility has fallen to a long-held floor of 36% — and everyone is reading it as calm. That’s the mistake. When volatility is cheap, traders build large directional bets at low cost; if the market then moves through a level with concentrated positioning, dealer hedging accelerates the swing. Low vol is not low risk. It’s a reason to watch leverage carefully. Meanwhile the S&P 500 has added $2.1 trillion in market cap this month — roughly equivalent to the entire crypto market — while bitcoin has added 2%. The equity rally is AI-driven and crypto has little direct exposure to that trade. And in the altcoin market, onchain data draws a sharp distinction: XRP whales are quietly accumulating without moving the price, while ether — the only major token trading below what its holders paid — may have the strongest valuation case of the three. Today: the Senate has two days before its August recess to act on the Clarity Act, and $101 billion in SpaceX stock becomes tradable as its first lockup expires. Read today’s full report → Market snapshot As of 8am EST Asset Price 24h BTC $64,529 +0.79% ETH $1,900 −0.50% SOL $74.50 −0.30% XRP $1.10 +0.40% Prices approximate. Visit coindesk.com/price for live data. What matters today Markets   Story 1 of 3 Bitcoin’s low volatility doesn’t necessarily mean low risk. Bitcoin’s 30-day implied volatility has settled at a long-established floor around 36% — and in financial markets, low volatility tends to be read as low risk. The argument is intuitive: a steadier asset seems safer than one whipsawing daily. But stability now can create instability later. When volatility is cheap, traders build large directional positions and hedging bets at low cost. If the market then moves through a level where those bets are concentrated, dealer hedging kicks in and amplifies the swing. Adam Haeems of Tesseract Group, which manages $500 million in client assets, put it plainly: “The practical implication is that low volatility should not be mistaken for low risk. It is a reason to be careful with leverage, particularly when trading volumes and market depth are subdued.” Options market signals reinforce the caution. Demand for puts — downside protection — has weakened, which is constructive. But there is also a lack of strong bids for upside exposure. Glassnode’s read: “The asymmetry is not a bid for puts; it is the disappearance of the call bid. Nobody is paying for upside, and nobody is paying much for downside.” That diffuse positioning around $64,500–$65,000 sets up a binary: a positive regulatory catalyst like the Clarity Act could trigger an outsized upside squeeze, while a breakdown in the Hormuz talks or an inflation shock could produce the opposite. DOGE has been decoupling from BTC since early July — underperforming even as bitcoin stabilizes — which historically has been the first sign that speculative interest has vacated the market and a bottom may be forming. Read more → Markets   Story 2 of 3 The S&P 500 has added crypto’s $2 trillion market cap this month. Bitcoin is not impressed. Here’s why. The S&P 500 has gained 3.12% in August, adding roughly $2.1 trillion in market cap and pushing its total to a record $70.5 trillion at 7,723 points. Bitcoin has added just 2% over the same stretch, trading around $64,600 — the same level it was already gyrating around before stocks broke out. Three interlocking reasons explain the divergence. First, the equity rally is AI-driven, and bitcoin has little direct exposure to AI or semiconductor earnings. As Tesseract Group’s Adam Haeems put it: “Partly because the equity rally is being driven by areas to which bitcoin has little direct exposure, particularly AI and semiconductor stocks.” Second, the macro tailwinds that benefit stocks arrive faster for equities than crypto. Oil falling on Hormuz deal hopes directly cuts corporate costs; for bitcoin it has to run through inflation expectations and then Fed policy — a slower, less certain path. Third, crypto has been fighting its own specific battles: the $120 million Coldcard exploit, Strategy selling bitcoin in three consecutive months, and stablecoin supply draining. USDT has fallen from $190 billion in April to $183 billion; USDC from $79.5 billion to $72 billion. Haeems: “With real Treasury returns at their highest since 2008, capital is being paid to remain outside crypto.” The halving cycle adds one more wrinkle. 10x Research’s Markus Thielen notes that most traders have collectively bought into the four-year cycle thesis pointing to an October bottom — and so they are waiting, sitting on the sidelines. Thielen’s counterpoint: BTC’s failure to move lower despite a hawkish Fed is itself a bullish signal. This week’s ETF inflows of $626 million are the highest since early May, but one good week needs confirmation. Wincent’s Paul Howard: the next big catalyst would be “positive regulatory news such as with the Clarity Act, which would likely manifest as institutional ETF inflows.” Read more → Markets   Story 3 of 3 XRP whales keep buying the dip, but ether shows deeper capitulation. XRP whales have kept buying throughout the token’s slide from around $2.40 in January to the current $1.00–$1.20 range — but they are doing it without lifting the price. CryptoQuant data shows average spot order sizes have stayed in “big-whale” territory all year. The 90-day taker cumulative volume delta, which measures whether buyers or sellers are the aggressors, has drifted to neutral from a taker-buy-dominant start to 2026. CryptoQuant calls this quiet absorption — a basing range, not capitulation and not a confirmed breakout. XRP sits near $1.10 against a realized price of roughly $0.75, so holders are above water on average. The more revealing read is ether. ETH trades near $1,900 against a realized price of approximately $2,450 — meaning the aggregate cost basis of all ETH holders sits above the current market price and they are underwater on paper. Bitcoin, by contrast, trades about 17% above its realized price of $52,900. Ether is the only major token where this underwater condition exists, and CryptoQuant identifies it as the metric to watch: ETH hit a similarly deep below-realized-price level in early 2025 and bottomed there before recovering. The holder base is also splitting internally. Wallets holding 10,000–100,000 ETH have risen from about 14 million ETH in mid-2025 to a record 19.6 million, while the 1,000–10,000 ETH cohort has fallen from 15.6 million in January 2026 to roughly 12.9 million — large holders accumulating as mid-tier holders exit. CryptoQuant’s read is that all three — BTC, ETH and XRP — may face one more leg lower before a durable floor is confirmed, and ether’s below-cost-basis trading is the single most important indicator to monitor. 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

"You stole, please return some."

The Coldcard hacker's wallet is now a public message board. The $114M breach could be a gift for bitcoin ETFs. And crypto's PAC went 5-1 in yesterday's primaries. ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ SPONSORED BY Wednesday, August 5, 2026 "You stole, please return some." Coldcard hacker's wallet becomes a graffiti wall of pleas and hustles The wallet holding $36 million in stolen bitcoin from the Coldcard hardware wallet exploit has become an unlikely public message board — victims and opportunists alike are paying to leave permanent notes via Bitcoin's OP_RETURN function, which embeds a small text string into the blockchain alongside any transaction. Messages range from genuine-sounding pleas ("you stole, please return some," "80% of my 5 BTC back") to outright hustle ("I clean btc, do kyc and cashout. I take 10%") to abstract poetry. At least one sender used the hacker's newfound spotlight to beg $1 BTC from strangers with no connection to the hack at all. It's a story about Bitcoin's architecture as much as the theft: OP_RETURN entries are permanent, timestamped, and publicly verifiable — meaning every message is now part of the blockchain forever. The total confirmed losses from the Coldcard exploit have since grown to more than $120 million across more than 5,200 affected addresses. Read more → A message from CME Group We are proud to announce that Nasdaq CME Crypto Index futures are now live and available to trade 24 hours a day, seven days a week.   Combining Nasdaq's expertise in world-class indexing with our liquid, transparent and CFTC-regulated marketplace, this launch continues to deepen our partnership.   The result is a groundbreaking new way for you to gain exposure to a significant portion of the cryptocurrency market — including bitcoin, ether, XRP, Solana, Cardano, Stellar, Chainlink and newly added Bitcoin Cash — all within a single, financially settled transaction.   Why trade Nasdaq CME Crypto index futures? Broad exposure, simplified: Instead of trading multiple assets, you can access a basket of the world's leading cryptocurrencies in one trade. Capital efficiency: Control a larger position with a smaller capital outlay and benefit from potential margin offsets. Right-sized trading: Choose between larger- or Micro-sized contracts to precisely scale your strategy — anywhere, anytime. Find out more Tech Coldcard exploit could boost demand for regulated bitcoin exposure, analysts say The $120 million Coldcard breach may carry an unintended silver lining for bitcoin ETFs and regulated custody providers. Cantor sees a positive read-through for COIN, HOOD, BTGO, BLSH, ETOR, and GEMI — arguing that token flows toward custodians will increase as Coldcard users seek alternatives. FRNT Financial echoed the point: while the self-custody community is heartbroken, the exploit exposed a hard tradeoff — holding your own keys still means trusting the hardware and software that generates them. For investors unwilling to accept that operational risk, spot bitcoin ETFs are increasingly the natural alternative. Read more → Policy Crypto's campaign efforts see rare loss, but crypto roster in Congress likely to grow Fairshake, the crypto industry's top PAC, went 5-1 in Tuesday's primaries — backing winners in Michigan and Washington while losing its $2 million bet on CLARITY Act co-sponsor Rep. Shri Thanedar, who was upset in his Detroit Democratic primary by progressive challenger Donavan McKinney, endorsed by Bernie Sanders. Thanedar's loss means a crypto ally in the House is replaced by a blank slate; McKinney is untested on the issue. But five other PAC-backed candidates prevailed, and the crypto caucus in the next Congress is still expected to grow. With the CLARITY Act's Senate floor vote hanging on a last-second ethics deal, every seat matters. Read more → Know someone who should be reading this? Share this newsletter 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.

Is AI absorbing capital that used to go to crypto?

The Coldcard hack lit up bitcoin's mempool. Global stocks are at record highs. Bitcoin isn't. Arthur Hayes thinks the AI bubble is 2008 — and the bailout sends BTC to $1 million. ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Wednesday, August 5, 2026   Global equity indexes — the S&P 500, the Dow, MSCI’s All Country World Index — are hitting record highs on AI optimism and progress toward reopening the Strait of Hormuz. Bitcoin is flat at $64,000. That divergence is the signal of the week. Meanwhile the $120 million Coldcard hardware wallet hack that began July 30 has lit up bitcoin’s mempool — 89,031 transactions waiting for miner confirmation, the most since February 2025 — as anxious holders shuffle coins to exchanges and fresh wallets. And Arthur Hayes has put the AI boom in a new frame: it’s not a dot-com repeat, it’s a 2008-style credit blowup in slow motion, and when it cracks, the government bailout could send bitcoin to $1 million. Read today’s full report → Market snapshot As of 8am EST Asset Price 24h BTC $64,045 +0.16% ETH $1,872 −0.40% SOL $74.80 −0.60% XRP $1.08 +0.20% Prices approximate. Visit coindesk.com/price for live data. What matters today Markets   Story 1 of 3 The $120 million Coldcard hack lights up bitcoin’s memory pool. The $120 million hardware wallet hack that began July 30 and is still ongoing has produced an unexpected side effect: a sharp spike in bitcoin network activity. The number of unconfirmed transactions waiting in bitcoin’s mempool hit 89,031 on Tuesday — the highest since February 2025 — as holders rattled by the Coldcard exploit rushed to shuffle their coins to exchanges and fresh wallets. Santiment data shows active addresses climbed to a three-month high of 712,000 and whale transactions reached a five-month high of 61,800. Higher network activity is generally constructive for valuations, but so far bitcoin has neither rallied nor dropped materially and remains boxed in the $62,000–$65,000 range it has held since May. The Clarity Act remains the most immediate policy binary: the Senate has a three-day window before its August 10 recess, with passage-by-year-end odds now at just 23% on Polymarket — down from roughly 75% in mid-May — and a proposal to attach prediction-market restrictions adding further process risk. The longer-duration macro headwind identified by Bitfinex is the 10-year real yield, now at 2.41% — nine basis points below the 2.5% threshold above which the exchange says bitcoin has never traded, meaning there is no price history above that line. If the real yield clears 2.5% and holds, Bitfinex says the macro tailwind for bitcoin is gone. Also on Wednesday: U.S. employment figures and ISM Services PMI land later today, and Galaxy Digital reports earnings. Read more → Markets   Story 2 of 3 An AI credit bubble could set up bitcoin’s path to $1 million. Arthur Hayes thinks most investors have the AI trade misfiled. In a new essay, the Maelstrom co-founder and BitMEX founder argues the ongoing data-center buildout is a credit story like 2008 — not an earnings story like the 2000 dot-com bust. Hyperscalers are borrowing against data centers stuffed with chips that depreciate fast, and lenders bankroll it believing they are financing technology when the underlying asset is closer to real estate. The break comes when announced capex stops accelerating — Hayes pegs late 2027 into 2028 — with credit keeping flowing past that point the way mortgage lending did into 2007, until the weakest AI debt cracks and drags down whoever is over-levered on it. Hayes expects Washington and Beijing to backstop the wreckage in the name of national security, printing more than they did in 2008. That flood of liquidity is what bottoms bitcoin and drives it toward $1 million. The nearer-term read: the recent AI selloff — Korea’s leveraged unwind included — is a dip inside a bull market, not the start of the bust. Meanwhile Bitfinex adds a real-time trip wire: the 10-year real yield at 2.41% is nine basis points below the 2.5% level above which bitcoin has no price history. Zcash jumped nearly 6% Wednesday and ZEC and BTC futures both showed positive open-interest-adjusted cumulative volume delta — suggesting the buyers using market orders are outpacing sellers — while XLM perpetual funding rates hit −23% annualized, a sharply bearish signal for that token. Read more → Markets   Story 3 of 3 Bitcoin and the broader market fail to keep pace as global equities hit record highs. Global stock indexes are printing records — the S&P 500 and Dow Jones closed at all-time highs Tuesday, MSCI’s All Country World Index rose 0.4% toward another peak close, and its Asia Pacific benchmark gained 2.2% — but bitcoin added just 0.16% to trade near $64,000 and the CoinDesk 20 was flat, with 11 components up and nine down. The divergence is crypto-specific: U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs recorded $5.4 billion in net outflows in the first half of 2026 as capital rotated into AI-linked assets. DWF Labs summarized it plainly in a new report: “Institutional and retail interest in crypto as an investment has cooled as AI absorbs a disproportionate share of capital and attention.” The one standout was PUMP, up 115% in 24 hours with futures open interest rising 9% alongside the price — though CoinDesk notes the OI level is not historically unusual; the single-day move is the story, not the aggregate. A $4 billion, 60-day contraction in Tether’s market cap adds a structural concern: USDT supply expands when new money enters crypto and shrinks when it leaves, and this is one of the steepest contractions on record. CryptoQuant frames it as potentially late-stage selling — past troughs this deep have preceded bitcoin recoveries — but the signal only confirms once USDT supply turns back up. It hasn’t yet. Circle reported Q2 revenue of $701 million, a 7% year-on-year gain but a miss versus analyst estimates. Today’s U.S. jobs data and ISM Services PMI could provide the directional catalyst the market is waiting for. 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