
BIP-110 fizzles, CLARITY vote punted, and more.	͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏	View in browser

Your weekly roundup of the 🔥hottest news in crypto:

A Week in Review: BIP-110 ends with a whimper, CLARITY vote punted

August 2 - 9

#1

Bitcoin ‘anti-spam’ BIP goes nowhere fast

Supporters of the BIP-110 soft fork hoped to eradicate spam from the blockchain, but after a lengthy and heated debate the proposal has been pronounced DOA or Dead On Arrival. After securing just 2.5% support ahead of entering mandatory signaling on Saturday, it split off into a minority chain that mined just two blocks in eight hours before stalling.

This is probably no surprise given it’s just as difficult and expensive to mine on the new chain as it is on Bitcoin — but without any hope of being able to sell the block reward to recoup the costs. The difficulty would have adjusted downward if they’d managed to mine through another 2,014 blocks.

BIP-110 aimed to rid Bitcoin of non-financial transactions, such as Ordinals, but opponents saw it as imposing censorship on the chain and it faced opposition from prominent Bitcoin advocates. Strategy executive chairman Michael Saylor said he shared the proposal’s objectives but argued that its approach threatened Bitcoin’s neutral rules and consensus.

Blockstream CEO Adam Back warned that the consensus-level change could damage Bitcoin’s credibility and potentially make certain unspent transaction outputs unspendable. Bitcoin Core developer Murch subsequently proposed removing BIP-110 backer Luke Dashjr from his position as a BIP Editor.

Get the full story

#2

Clarity vote gets punted to September

Senator Tim Scott, who chairs the Senate Banking Committee, said on Thursday a procedural vote on the CLARITY Act should happen before the August recess “without any question.”

Senator Cynthia Lummis also raised hopes of a last minute vote. But despite hopes the senators would locked in a room and forced to compromise before leaving for the August break, Senate Majority Leader John Thune declined to force the issue and later scheduled the cloture vote for Sept. 15.

“The Dems are insistent on no Clarity vote,” Thune told Cointelegraph. “I worked with sponsors of the bill. Senator Lummis was great, and we’re getting that queued up first thing when we come back.”

Crypto lobbyists have until then to shore up the 60 votes required by negotiating on ethics rules, the stablecoin yield issue, and protection for developers in the BRCA. The real question though is whether it will be a serious attempt to pass the legislation, or if the vote has been called simply “to get people on the record” ahead of the mid-term elections as Lummis suggested.

#3

Ethereum researchers want to rein in staking; critics say it could backfire

A group of Ethereum researchers and developers have proposed changing the network’s issuance policy to cut validator rewards more sharply as the proportion of staked ETH rises.

Tapered Issuance Burn (AKA EIP-8363) would cut rewards entirely as the percentage of supply staked crossed the 50% mark. It’s currently at 34% with a huge queue of ETH waiting to enter, and there are fears this may continue to snowball while providing progressively less benefit for the security of the network.

Despite offering some compelling arguments in favor of the proposal, it has been met with a fierce backlash, especially from DeFi protocols. Ether.fi founder Mike Silagadze suggested Ether.fi would get out of staking entirely if it goes through. He said: “This is so disappointing on every level. [...] This is bad for decentralization, this is bad for Ethereum adoption, and this is bad for the credibility of the network.”

Prediction of the week

Bitcoin will never fall below $60K again: Nansen founder

Nansen founder and CEO Alex Svanevik says the Bitcoin market may be approaching a bottom, suggesting that the current level around $60,000 could mark Bitcoin’s cycle low.

“My personal view is that I don’t think Bitcoin’s gonna go back below $60,000,” Svanevik says. “I think that’s the past… I think forever,” he says.

He bases this on the belief that Bitcoin serves as a hedge against central bank money creation, and he doesn’t see the global monetary expansion cycle coming to an end anytime soon.

FUD of the week

Crypto wrench attacks net more than $30M so far in 2026

Criminals stole more than $30 million through physical attacks on crypto holders in the first half of this year, putting 2026 on pace to surpass the record $58 million stolen in 2025.

Chainalysis reports that 46 violent crypto-related incidents had been documented globally through late June, up from 40 during the same period in 2025. The incidents include kidnappings, home invasions and hostage situations, collectively known as “wrench attacks.”

Only 12 of the 46 attempts resulted in payment, giving attackers a 26% success rate, down from 49% in 2025.

FUD of the week

ElizaOS token sinks 19% to record low after founder declares it ‘dead’

ElizaOS fell 19% over 24 hours to an all-time low after Eliza Labs founder Shaw Walters said the token was “dead” and that the Eliza Foundation was winding down.

CoinGecko data showed the token now has a market capitalization of $2.1 million.

“The token is dead. Completely,” Walters said, adding that he no longer owned or supported the token.

The decline represents a stark reversal for one of the AI-agent sector’s former breakout tokens. Before the project rebranded as ElizaOS, the token, then known as AI16Z, reached a peak market capitalization of $2.5 billion in January 2025, according to CoinGecko.

Walters said the development of the open-source Eliza software would continue without the token or the foundation.