WuBlockchain’s weekly top 10 list was led by a delay to the U.S. Senate vote on the CLARITY Act, Strategy’s sale of 1,638 BTC, and Move creator Sam Blackshear’s departure from Mysten Labs to join Anthropic.
Senate pushes CLARITY Act vote to September
Politico reporter Jordain Carney said Senate Majority Leader John Thune confirmed that the Senate will delay a vote on the CLARITY Act until September, after senators return and related scheduling resumes.
Blockchain Association CEO Summer Mersinger published a rebuttal to earlier Wall Street Journal criticism of the bill. She wrote that the Journal acknowledged the legislation could end regulatory gray areas, give investors and banks clearer rules, and help tokenized assets develop, while still raising objections around stablecoin rewards, DeFi oversight, and tokenized securities.
Mersinger argued the bill does not weaken efforts against illicit finance and does not impose unrealistic KYC duties on decentralized code. Instead, she said, it sets clear compliance standards for intermediaries and rejects monopoly protection for traditional banks. She called on the Wall Street Journal to return to what she described as its long-standing support for free markets and fair competition and back the bill as a way to bring certainty to digital asset markets.
Bernstein said the chances of the CLARITY Act passing in 2026 are falling. If the bill does not pass, the market could see a negative short-term reaction, though the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission may move faster under “Project Crypto” to write crypto rules, including token classification, DeFi and self-custody rules, and an “innovation exemption” for token issuance. Bernstein added that even if legislation stalls, regulators are still likely to support RWA tokenization, related perpetual contracts, and prediction markets.
Strategy sells 1,638 BTC under capital management plan
Strategy’s board has authorized the company to sell up to about $5 billion in Bitcoin under its capital management plan. Of that amount, up to $1.25 billion may be used to replenish U.S. dollar reserves, about $1.76 billion is earmarked for annual preferred dividends and interest payments, and as much as $2 billion may be used to repurchase MSTR stock and digital credit securities.
From July 27 to Aug. 2, Strategy sold 1,638 BTC at an average price of $63,957, generating about $104.7 million. Roughly half of the proceeds went to preferred share dividends, with the rest used for STRC buybacks. During the same period, the company raised $290.6 million by selling MSTR stock, repurchased $81.2 million of STRC, and increased its U.S. dollar reserves to $4 billion.
On Wednesday, a wallet suspected to be tied to Michael Saylor’s Strategy moved another 1,030 BTC, worth about $66.14 million. Strategy still holds 842,138 BTC with a total value of about $52.65 billion.
A newly filed Form 13F from Citigroup showed that as of June 30, 2026, it held 961,554 shares of Bitcoin treasury company Strategy (NASDAQ: MSTR), with an end-of-period value of about $90.5 million. That was up 238,538 shares, or about 33%, from 723,016 shares in the first quarter. Citigroup submitted the filing on Aug. 3, covering positions held across multiple affiliated investment management entities.
BitMine lifts ETH holdings to 5.7978 million
BitMine now holds 5.7978 million ETH, equal to about 4.8% of Ethereum’s total supply, after adding 10,399 ETH over the past week. The company said its crypto assets, cash, marketable securities, and other investments total about $11.3 billion.
Of its ETH holdings, 4.9172 million ETH has been staked. Based on the current yield, expected annualized staking income is about $247 million. BitMine also repurchased 4.5 million common shares last week, bringing cumulative buybacks since July to 16.1 million shares.
Move creator Sam Blackshear leaves Mysten Labs
Sam Blackshear, the creator of the Move programming language and a co-founder of Mysten Labs, said he is leaving the company to join Anthropic for defensive security research.
He will remain an advisor to Mysten Labs and projects in the Sui ecosystem, and will also take part in the planned Move Foundation. Future technical direction at Mysten Labs will be handled by EvanWeb3.
Coinbase Bitcoin premium index stays negative for 78 straight days
The Coinbase Bitcoin premium index has stayed below zero for 78 consecutive days, with the latest reading at -0.1145%, marking the longest continuous negative stretch for the indicator.
The measure tracks BTC price differences between Coinbase and other major trading venues and is often used as a reference point for U.S. market demand. A persistent negative reading means BTC is trading at a relative discount on Coinbase, which may point to weaker demand from U.S. investors or comparatively higher selling pressure.
Mastercard completes BVNK acquisition
Mastercard said it has completed its acquisition of stablecoin payments infrastructure company BVNK. In March, Mastercard announced a deal worth as much as $1.8 billion, including $300 million in contingent consideration. The transaction has now formally closed.
BVNK provides fiat and onchain payments infrastructure and supports the holding, transfer, management, and exchange of fiat currencies and digital assets. Mastercard said the acquisition strengthens its ability to connect fiat and digital asset payment networks, with an emphasis on stablecoin use cases in cross-border B2B payments, remittances, corporate payouts, settlement, and treasury management.
Hashdex to shut and liquidate DEFI Bitcoin ETF
Hashdex said it will close and liquidate the Hashdex Bitcoin ETF (NYSE Arca: DEFI). As of July 30, the fund had about $14.7 million in assets under management.
Trading will end and subscriptions will stop on Aug. 17, after which the fund will be delisted from NYSE Arca. Investors still holding shares are expected to receive cash liquidation proceeds on or around Aug. 28. Hashdex said the move was based on factors including fund size, liquidity, operating costs, investor demand, and broader product lineup considerations. The fund will sell its remaining Bitcoin holdings after the final trading day and complete liquidation.
Circle reports second-quarter 2026 revenue and reserve income of $701 million
Circle said USDC circulation reached $73.3 billion in the second quarter of 2026, up 19% year over year. Onchain transaction volume reached $14.8 trillion, up 151%, while revenue and reserve income came in at $701 million, up 7%.
Continuing operations net income was $48 million and adjusted EBITDA was $143 million, up 8%. Circle also said Arc now has more than 100 ecosystem and institutional builders and is scheduled to launch its public mainnet on Sept. 16 with support for privacy, programmable finance, and real-world asset tokenization.
On the earnings call, Circle founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire said the company had renewed its partnership with Coinbase on existing terms, keeping USDC in a core position across Coinbase’s product suite. He added that Circle will continue expanding the USDC network through distribution partnerships with strategically aligned partners.
Chief Financial Officer Jeremy Fox-Geen said the company has no current plan to introduce quarterly dividends. He said Circle intends to maintain a strong balance sheet and prioritize capital toward business growth and strategic investments, adding that as a high-growth company it believes its current capital allocation can create better long-term returns for shareholders than dividends.
Arthur Hayes ties an AI bubble break to a return of the Bitcoin bull market
BitMEX founder Arthur Hayes published a new essay titled “Situationship,” laying out his view on how an AI bubble could break and what that could mean for Bitcoin.
Hayes wrote that the market broadly treats trillions of dollars in AI capital spending as high-growth technology investment, while he sees it as closer to real estate development. As financial intermediaries, with the tacit consent of the U.S. and Chinese governments, overbuild data centers and related infrastructure, he argued that any AI bubble collapse would look more like the 2008 credit crisis than the 2000 internet bubble.
He said that if such a break happens, central banks would likely return to aggressive money printing, which in his view would send Bitcoin and the broader crypto market back into a strong bull phase. Hayes added that Bitcoin may trade between $60,000 and $70,000 for a period, with downside potential to $50,000, and said his family office Maelstrom has bought a large amount of Bitcoin.
He also said Ethereum is the next altcoin narrative for the coming six months and set a year-end 2026 target price of $5,000 for ETH.
Brazil posts 135% growth in crypto demand in the first half
Brazil’s central bank disclosed that crypto asset transaction volume in the country reached $14.68 billion in the first half of 2026, up 135% from a year earlier. June alone accounted for $2.54 billion.
The report said stablecoins were the main driver of demand growth. Beyond speculative trading, stablecoins are being used for payments, value transfer, and liquidity reserves.
Key financing items of the week
- Polymarket is seeking about $1 billion in financing at a target valuation above $20 billion.
- Blockspace completed a new funding round focused on infrastructure beyond the Ethereum protocol layer.
- AI Agent infrastructure company Sapiom completed a $35 million Series A led by Dragonfly.
- BNB Chain ecosystem prediction market protocol Fortune Protocol announced the completion of a Pre-A round.
- Stablecoin infrastructure company Yellow Card raised $40 million in strategic financing.
- Yen stablecoin JPYC has raised a cumulative total of about 6 billion yen in its Series B, with new investors including logistics group AZ-COM Maruwa Holdings.
- Japanese NFT hospitality membership service NOT A HOTEL completed fundraising of about 16.5 billion yen.
- Spatial data DePIN project Vangrid raised $9 million in seed funding to expand its Physical AI data network.
- More industry financing events are available at crypto-fundraising.info.