Thursday | Crypto

Bitcoin ETFs lost $244 million on Thursday and the ZEC fund extended a run of October outflows. Bitcoin is back near $82,000 after a $1 billion liquidation.

US President Donald Trump is set to meet with several senators on Thursday as negotiators race to get the CLARITY Act across the line before the Senate’s August recess. US President Donald Trump is set to meet with several senators at the White House on Thursday to discuss progress on the crypto market structure bill.  According to Politico, Senator Bernie Moreno said a group of senators will brief the president on the bill and “its path to success.” Senator Cynthia Lummis will also attend, according to a Senate Republican aide. “We’ll be talking about the entirety of the bill. I mean, obviously the president’s been very engaged in this bill,” said Moreno. “He’s the one who’s really driven the innovation that I think will pay dividends.”  Read more

Armstrong said the bill is "closer than ever" to advancing in the US Congress after months of negotiations between the crypto industry and banks. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong is supporting the latest version of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act (CLARITY) ahead of the US Senate's markup of the crypto market structure bill on Thursday.  “I don't think it's ever been in a stronger or more bipartisan position,” he said about the latest iteration of the market structure bill. Armstrong said that the banking and crypto industry lobbies have reached a “healthy compromise” on stablecoin yield, which was one of the main issues that stalled the market structure bill in January. He added: Read more

The Senate Agriculture Committee pushed its planned markup hearing, where lawmakers would debate and vote on its market structure bill, to Thursday morning.

The era of memecoin exchange-traded funds has begun in the United States, according to Bloomberg’s Eric Balchunas. The United States’ first memecoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) is set to debut on Thursday, marking the latest step in the expansion of regulated crypto products after the successful rollout of Bitcoin and Ether funds last year. In a social media post on Tuesday, Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas said the Rex-Osprey Doge ETF (DOJE) is set to debut Thursday. “Pretty sure this is the first-ever US ETF to hold something that has no utility or purpose,” Balchunas said. Read more

Polygon Foundation CEO Sandeep Nailwal described the upcoming Heimdall 2.0 upgrade as the “most complex” Polygon hard fork since 2020. Polygon is set to deploy its most complex hard fork to date on Thursday, upgrading its proof-of-stake blockchain with a new consensus layer dubbed Heimdall 2.0. In an X post, Polygon Foundation CEO Sandeep Nailwal said the upgrade enhances the backbone of Polygon’s proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain. It will replace legacy components dating back to 2018 and 2019 with newer infrastructure.  “This is the most technically complex hard fork Polygon PoS has seen since its launch in 2020,” Nailwal wrote, adding that it will improve finality, user experience and the network’s upgradeability.  Read more