Replay Risk: the danger is in claiming the free coins
The BIP-110 fork failed. That was never in doubt at 2.5% miner support.
Read more →Weekly Newsletter
The sharpest crypto signals — what moved, and why it matters.
Sun, Aug 9
Coldcard: the same tool, only one winner
Weeks before the theft, Coinkite ran an AI review over its firmware — the open-source code anyone can read. It found nothing. Then, it believes, an attacker pointed AI at older versions of that same code and found the flaw that drained…
Read more →CLARITY Vote Slips to September
CLARITY Act Senate fight
The CLARITY Act is moving through an increasingly narrow Senate window toward a floor vote as ethics disputes, opposition coalitions, and shifting passage odds keep the bill's fate uncertain.
Latest: The Senate leaves for recess without a CLARITY Act vote — Thune declined to file the cloture motion needed for a floor vote, pushing the first vote to September 15 at earliest as the ethics standoff over Trump's crypto holdings remains unresolved; Polymarket 2026-enactment odds ~15%
Mastercard + BVNK: buying the taps
A stablecoin was supposed to be a dollar that moves without asking anyone's permission. Mastercard just paid up to $1.8 billion for one of the busiest doors that dollar walks through. BVNK builds the plumbing that connects stablecoins to…
Read more →
BlackRock: the reserve manager of choice
The line to catch isn't the two new funds. It's what BlackRock's own finance chief said on the earnings call: they already manage $60 billion of reserves for Circle, the company behind the USDC dollar coin — about a quarter of the entire…
Read more →
Bhutan vs El Salvador: two ways to hold
Bhutan mined its Bitcoin cheaply with hydropower, then, on-chain trackers say, sold it in careful chunks to fund a new city (though Bhutan denies selling). Roughly 13,000 coins down to 3,000-4,000. No fresh mining coming in to refill the…
Read more →
Visa Direct: settlement, not access
"18 billion endpoints" sounds like the whole world just got a stablecoin wallet. Read what actually changed. Businesses — not you — can now prefund and pay out in stablecoins through Visa Direct, Visa's cross-border payout network, with a…
Read more →
BIP-110: the fallback is a bigger deal than the fork
BIP-110 lost the vote. Its supporters' answer is a bigger weapon.
Read more →
Bitcoin Red Team: the defenders got the same superpower
Two days ago I argued the Coldcard theft showed AI cutting the attacker's costs — the same code-reading tool in both hands, and this time only the thief profited. Here's the other half of that story, and it arrived within the week. Sixteen…
Read more →
Circle's Arc: the same fifteen names, again
If you've read Cut Through Crypto for a fortnight, the Arc validator list will feel like déjà vu. BlackRock, Visa, Mastercard, DTCC, ICE, Standard Chartered — the same names that this week alone launched reserve funds, bought payment…
Read more →Strategy Sells Below Cost, Reserve Hits $4B
Strategy BTC treasury stress
Strategy is navigating a crisis in its Bitcoin treasury model, oscillating between forced BTC sales, purchase pauses, and resumed accumulation as STRC preferred stock stress and unrealized losses reshape its capital framework.
Latest: Strategy sells 1,638 BTC (~$105M) at roughly $64,000 a coin — below its ~$75,400 average cost — repurchasing $81.2M of STRC near $89 and lifting its dollar reserve to $4B as the buying pause extends
A Third of Zcash's Crowd Has Crossed
Over 800,000 ZEC migrates to Ironwood pool in one week, representing roughly a third of the sealed supply
Consortium Targets Circle's Reserve Income
Open USD threatens Circle
A growing 167-plus partner Open USD consortium is threatening Circle's reserve income dominance as the stablecoin launches with major backers.
Latest: A day after Circle renews its Coinbase distribution deal, CoinShares flags the 140-partner Open USD consortium as a structural threat to the reserve income — $667.7M last quarter, 95% of Circle's revenue — that the deal rests on; Mizuho has cut Circle to underperform, though Open USD isn't yet live.
The other kind of control: who runs the validators
BNY plans to let clients earn staking yield through Galaxy. Galaxy also runs validators for BlackRock's staked-Ethereum fund. Both routing the machinery of the network through one operator.
Read more →Get it in your inbox
The daily newsletter, free — no account needed. Unsubscribe any time.