Cryptonews

Bitcoin Magazine Circle (CRCL) Wins Final OCC Approval for National Trust Bank Circle Internet Group secured final approval from the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency today, to establish a national trust bank, a milestone that sent the stablecoin issuer’s shares higher and deepened its ties to the federal banking system. The regulator cleared Circle to charter First National Digital Currency Bank, N.A., which will operate under the name Circle National Trust.  The company, which trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker CRCL, said the charter places the new entity under direct federal oversight by the OCC, the primary supervisor for national banks and national trust banks. Circle National Trust will provide fiduciary custody services for digital assets held by Circle and its affiliates. Under the business plan the OCC approved, the bank could extend custody services to a limited set of institutional customers, with a focus on banks a...

Bitcoin Magazine Metaplanet Announces Joint Study to Bring Bitcoin-Backed Digital Credit to Japan Metaplanet wants to turn its bitcoin pile into a credit market. On Friday, Japan’s largest corporate bitcoin holder said it has opened a joint study with three partners to build tokenized credit products backed by bitcoin, a step that pushes the company past simple treasury accumulation and toward the role of a financial platform. The study group brings together Metaplanet, the yen stablecoin issuer JPYC, the regulated security token platform Progmat, and Siiibo Securities, the licensed brokerage Metaplanet bought last month for 2.1 billion yen, or about $13 million. Siiibo becomes Metaplanet Securities on July 13. The four firms will examine whether bitcoin can serve as collateral for credit instruments that pay interest each day. Metaplanet frames this as a product that exists in the United States but not in Japan.  Digitization, the company said, would allow ...

Bitcoin Magazine Bitcoin is “A Screaming Buy”: Standard Chartered Backs $100,000 Target, Shrugs Off Strategy (MSTR) Sell-Off Standard Chartered maintained its end-2026 Bitcoin price forecast of $100,000 in a note to investors on Friday, arguing that the recent weakness reflects a failure by Strategy to explain a strategic shift rather than any deterioration in the company’s balance sheet. Geoffrey Kendrick, the bank’s global head of digital assets research, wrote that Strategy — the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin, with 843,775 coins, more than 4% of the 21 million that will ever exist — “appears to be pivoting from its ‘never sell Bitcoin’ mantra to a more complex approach.”  Clear communication of that pivot, he wrote, will determine how fast the pressure on BTC lifts. Between 2020 and mid-2025, Strategy’s mNAV — enterprise value divided by the value of its Bitcoin — traded above 1.0. That premium lets t...

Bitcoin Magazine Bitcoin’s New Debt Machine is Facing Its First Major Test Public companies kept stacking Bitcoin in June, but the month’s real story played out in a corner of the market that did not exist a couple of years ago: the preferred shares that treasury firms now use to fund their coin purchases.  A new report from BitcoinTreasuries.net calls June the first true stress test for this “digital credit” market, and the results offer a mixed but telling verdict on where corporate Bitcoin adoption goes next. First, the buying. Public treasuries added close to 9,000 BTC before sales in June, or about 7,300 BTC on a net basis, worth some $427 million at the month-end price of $58,398. That counts as moderate growth, and two names did most of the work.  Michael Saylor’s Strategy added 3,625 BTC net, and Strive added 3,364, with each company spending in the neighborhood of $200 million.  Strip out those two and the rest ...

Bitcoin Magazine BitGo Adds Quantum-Risk Controls to Bitcoin Custody BitGo Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: BTGO) introduced a set of tools to help institutions measure and reduce the quantum-computing risk tied to their Bitcoin holdings. The digital asset infrastructure company said the features apply to UTXO-based wallets and its multi-signature custody service. The release builds on BitGo’s multi-signature architecture , which the firm pioneered for Bitcoin to reduce single points of failure. The new controls give clients more visibility into wallet-key exposure, better handling of unspent transaction outputs, and workflows for institutional wallet operations. At the center of the launch is a Quantum Risk Score, an in-platform system that rates potential quantum exposure across supported Bitcoin wallets. A Fix Exposed Addresses Workflow guides clients through moving funds from addresses with elevated exposure into new addresses with stronger key hygiene.  A new UTXO ...

Bitcoin Magazine Russia’s Largest Private Bank Alfa-Bank To Test Bitcoin and Crypto Trading Alfa-Bank, Russia’s largest private lender, is preparing to launch its own digital depository and a full slate of crypto services once national regulation takes effect, joining a widening race among Russian banks to capture a market that does not yet legally exist. Dmitry Vitman, chief operating officer of Alfa-Bank’s corporate and investment business, told RBC Investments that the bank intends to offer “all possible services related to digital currencies” once the relevant legislation comes into force.  “First and foremost, we plan to create our own digital depository and offer its services to other companies,” he said. Under the framework expected to govern the market, a digital depository would record and store cryptocurrency and digital financial assets, monitor client transactions, and block transfers to addresses not sanctioned...

Bitcoin Magazine CFTC Chair Says Clarity Act Is ‘So Close’ As August Deadline Nears Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Michael Selig said the Clarity Act remains within reach, days after Congress missed its July 4 target to pass the crypto market-structure bill. “We’re so close. We have to get this done,” Selig told Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo.  Some analysts give the measure even odds of passage before the August 7 recess. The bill would divide oversight of digital assets between the CFTC and the Securities and Exchange Commission, a split the industry has sought for years. The House passed the legislation last summer. The Senate has yet to hold a floor vote. Selig, a Trump appointee confirmed in December , backed the Clarity Act effort as a matter of national competitiveness. He backed the effort as a matter of national competitiveness.  “It’s critical that we have a federal standard for crypto assets,” he sai...

Bitcoin Magazine Bull Bitcoin Files Landmark Legal Challenge to Annul France’s DAC8 Crypto Data Surveillance Rules Bull Bitcoin exchange, recently licensed under MiCA, is challenging the European directive in French courts that sets up a mass surveillance database, putting millions of crypto users at risk.  Bull Bitcoin, the world’s oldest Bitcoin-only and non-custodial exchange, recently licensed under MiCA by France’s financial markets regulator AMF, has filed a legal challenge before the Conseil d’État, France’s supreme administrative court. The challenge seeks to annul Decree No. 2025-1276, the main measure transposing the European DAC8 directive into French law, on the grounds that it creates a massive surveillance grid and database that institutions can not secure from leaks and data hacks , ultimately putting civilians at risk of kidnapping and physical harm.  Alongside the legal action, the company is making dac8.com public: “a complete, full...

Bitcoin Magazine Cantor SPAC and Adam Back’s Bitcoin Treasury Renegotiate Merger Terms, Vow New Structure Cantor Equity Partners I (Nasdaq: CEPO), a special purpose acquisition company backed by an affiliate of Cantor Fitzgerald, and BSTR Holdings said today that they will not complete their proposed bitcoin business combination on the terms set in their July 2025 agreement . The parties plan to negotiate a revised structure and amended terms that reflect market conditions. The companies said the private placements tied to the original deal will not need to close. A shareholder meeting for CEPO, set for July 10, moved to a postponed date with no fixed timeline. Public shares submitted for redemption will return to holders, the note said.  The announcement marks a reversal for one of the largest bitcoin treasury deals to reach public markets. When the two firms unveiled the merger in July 2025, they framed a plan to take Bitcoin Standard Treasury Company, led by...

Bitcoin Magazine SpaceX Nasdaq-100 Entry Brings Bitcoin Exposure to Passive Index Investors Today (July 7, 2026) SpaceX formally joins the Nasdaq-100 Index. The inclusion comes just weeks after the company’s public debut and follows its disclosure of 18,712 BTC on the balance sheet. JPMorgan estimates that index rebalancing will drive approximately $4.3 billion in passive inflows from Nasdaq-100-tracking funds and ETFs. This development is more than headline news. It creates a structural, rules-based channel for institutional capital to gain exposure to Bitcoin through a corporate treasury vehicle — without requiring active allocation decisions, new mandates, or direct cryptocurrency purchases.For corporate treasury teams, capital allocators, and institutional investors evaluating Bitcoin on balance sheets , the move provides a clear data point on how the strategy can intersect with mainstream equity infrastructure. The Mechanics of Structural Demand Passive index funds...