Author: James Wilson
Strategy Inc. kept the annual dividend rate on its STRC preferred stock at 12% for August 2026, even though the Nasdaq-listed security ended July more than 10% below its $100 stated amount. Summary 12% annualized dividend remains unchanged for August despite STRC closing July at $89.46 per share. $3.75 billion reserve covers roughly 2.1 years of preferred dividends and debt interest payments currently. Strategy repurchased 288,930 STRC shares below par while retaining $975 million in remaining authorization capacity. The company’s official STRC information page confirms that the variable annualized rate for record dates beginning in August remains 12%. Executive Chairman…
Ripple Director of Engineering Vijay Khanna urged XRP Ledger node operators on Aug. 2 to install xrpld version 3.2.1 after developers observed a validator manifest flood on July 31. Summary July 31 manifest flooding prompted xrpld 3.2.1 while XRP Ledger continued closing ledgers normally throughout. Four safeguards now cap manifest size, message batches, outbound sharing and unknown-key cache growth network-wide. Operators should upgrade, verify xrpld is running, then restart again to clear persisted manifests safely. The hotfix limits how nodes process, store and share data received from unknown validator identities. The XRP Ledger continued closing ledgers normally during the event,…
Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 110 can no longer reach its 55% voluntary miner threshold during the current difficulty period, according to blockchain signaling data and an Aug. 1 analysis from Strategy Executive Chairman Michael Saylor. Summary 28 signaling blocks appeared among 1,108, leaving BIP-110 at 2.53% support as of Aug. 2. Saylor said all 24 initial signals came from DATUM miners sharing rewards through OCEAN’s system. Mandatory signaling starts at block 961,632, when enforcing nodes reject every non-signaling block as invalid. Strategy’s official website identifies Saylor as the company’s executive chairman. At block 960,561, Saylor counted 24 signaling blocks among 946,…
Trump Media-linked wallets transferred 2,628 Bitcoin, valued at about $165 million, to Crypto.com on Aug. 2, according to on-chain analysts Lookonchain. Summary 2,628 BTC moved to Crypto.com, but no company filing has confirmed an outright sale yet. Trump Media reported 9,542.16 BTC in March, including 4,260.73 BTC pledged as secured convertible-note collateral. Lookonchain estimates realized and unrealized Bitcoin losses at $555 million after seven months of transfers. The movement reportedly reduced the wallets’ remaining balance to about 4,261 BTC.Lookonchain described the movement as another sale and estimated that Trump Media had disposed of 7,281 BTC over seven months. However, neither…
Galaxy Research raised its estimate of Bitcoin drained from addresses linked to the Coldcard firmware flaw to 1,367.05 BTC, worth about $88.6 million, on Aug. 1. Summary 1,367.05 BTC was drained across 4,585 addresses in three suspected Coldcard attack waves, Galaxy reported. July 30’s first wave removed 1,082.65 BTC from 1,196 addresses in just 41 minutes total. Firmware updates fix new seed generation but cannot repair vulnerable seeds created on earlier releases. The research unit identified 4,585 affected addresses across three suspected attack waves, replacing its earlier estimate of 1,082.65 BTC from 1,196 addresses. The revised figure means the $70.2…
A crypto industry-aligned political action committee has pushed its spending above $2 million in Michigan’s 13th Congressional District, according to final-week Federal Election Commission disclosures. Summary Protect Progress spending surpassed $2 million backing Thanedar and opposing McKinney before Tuesday’s primary vote. $884,240 in new advertisements supported Thanedar, while more than $150,000 targeted McKinney with opposition messaging. August 4 voters will decide the Democratic nominee after over one million Michiganders voted early. Protect Progress is supporting Democratic incumbent Shri Thanedar and opposing challenger Donavan McKinney before the Aug. 4 primary. Protect Progress is affiliated with the Fairshake network, which has received…
Decentralized exchange spot trading rose to about 24% of centralized exchange volume in July 2026, according to The Block’s current DEX-to-CEX data series. Summary July’s DEX-to-CEX spot ratio reached about 24%, according to The Block’s current data series estimate. DefiLlama’s trailing data ranked Solana, BNB Chain and Ethereum among the largest spot ecosystems globally. Robinhood Chain added July activity after Uniswap deployed four protocol versions from its first day. The reading was described as the strongest shown in the current series and continued a broader rise in onchain market share since 2024. The Block calculates the measure by dividing monthly…
Tether earned $1.5 billion in three months while its safety cushion fell by half, raising questions about whether the world’s largest stablecoin can sustain its reserve strategy through a rate cycle. Summary Tether reported $1.5 billion in net operating profit for the second quarter of 2026, driven primarily by returns from US Treasury holdings and repurchase agreement operations. The company’s excess reserves fell from a record $8.23 billion at the end of Q1 to $4.11 billion at the end of Q2, a decline of approximately 50% in three months. USDT supply reached $184.6 billion, representing more than 60% of the…
Bitcoin mining difficulty has dropped 19.9% from its peak in the third deepest ASIC era decline on record, as miners sell bitcoin at record rates and redirect power capacity toward artificial intelligence data centers. Summary Bitcoin mining difficulty has fallen 19.9% from its November 2025 peak of approximately 156 trillion to 126.23 trillion, the third deepest decline since dedicated ASIC hardware replaced graphics processors. Network hashrate declined roughly 12% from its late 2025 peak above one zettahash per second to approximately 868 exahashes per second by late July 2026, with Bitcoin Magazine Pro tracking 287 consecutive days of downward trend.…
The United States has sanctioned Iranian exchanges, frozen nearly $1 billion in cryptocurrency, and traced $3.84 billion in Iran-linked flows through a single offshore exchange, exposing the scale of sanctions evasion through digital assets. Summary The US Treasury has sanctioned four Iranian cryptocurrency exchanges, including Nobitex, which handles approximately 50% of Iran’s crypto trading volume, as part of Operation Economic Fury launched in April 2026. Treasury has seized or frozen nearly $1 billion in cryptocurrency from Iranian exchanges and wallets since the US-Israeli strikes on Tehran in February, including a $344 million USDT freeze in April and a $131 million…