Cryptocurrency investors held through another rocky week, digesting a mixed range of news spanning from Strategy’s latest Bitcoin sale to the devastating $100 million Coldcard exploit.

On Monday, Michael Saylor’s Strategy delivered its 2nd-largest Bitcoin sale of the year, as it offloaded $104 million in BTC to continue bolstering its 🏦 USD reserve and grow its dividend runway.

Investor morale took another hit after a 5-year vulnerability was rediscovered in hard wallet provider Coldcard, resulting in $100 million worth of confirmed losses from thousands of investors.

Despite the hit, BitMEX co-founder Arhut Hayes delivered another bullish essay, predicting that Bitcoin’s price will soar to $1 million, as the 🇺🇸 US central bank will be forced to turn on money printed in 2028 to bail out companies following the incoming crash of the AI stock bubble.

Lastly, Ethereum researchers issued a new proposal to cut validator staking rewards, seeking to gradually reduce incentives to halt Ether’s growing percentage of staked supply before it reached the critical 50% threshold.

Still, the silver lining to the week came from crypto analytics providers, who pointed to multiple fundamental metrics that signal the imminent end of the crypto 🐻 bear market cycle.

📊 Crypto Market Analysis And The Most Important News In Web3

💰 Strategy Sells $104 Million In Bitcoin In The 2nd-Largest Sale Of 2026

🚀 AI Credit Bubble To Fuel Bitcoin’s Rise To $1 Million: Arthur Hayes

🟦 Ethereum Researchers Issue Proposal To Reduce Validator Rewards

⚠️ Coldcard Exploit Claims $100 Million In First Confirmed Waves

📈 Analysis And Key Events That Will Shape The Crypto Market Next Week

💰 Strategy Sells $104 Million In Bitcoin, In 2nd-Largest Sale Of 2026

Michael Saylor’s Strategy delivered its 2nd-largest Bitcoin sale of 2026, as it continued to bolster its U.S. dollar reserve to protect the price of its preferred stock.

Strategy sold 1,638 Bitcoin at an average price of $63,957 for a total of $104.7 million last week, the world’s largest corporate BTC holder disclosed in an Aug. 3 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission 💼. This reduced the company’s holdings to 842,138 Bitcoin bought at an aggregate cost of $63.5 billion.

Strategy used $52.4 million of the proceeds to fund dividend payments on Strategy’s STRC preferred stock, and another $52.3 million to repurchase STRC.

The move marked Strategy’s second-largest Bitcoin sale for the year. Earlier in July, Strategy sold 3,588 BTC for $216 million, following the disclosure of a smaller 32 Bitcoin sale at the beginning of June. These transactions were Strategy’s first Bitcoin sales since its 2022 tax-loss harvesting transaction 🏢.

In total, Strategy added $250 million to its US dollar reserve that surpassed $4 billion, giving the company 2.3 years of runway to fund its dividend payments on its STRC stock, Strategy founder and chairman Michael Saylor announced on Monday.

Strategy’s preferential STRC stock gained 3.2% the following day to trade above $92.3, but remained over 7.7% below its intended $100 par value, according to Yahoo Finance. Trading below par makes it increasingly difficult for Strategy to issue new shares to fuel its Bitcoin accumulation 💹.

🚀 AI Credit Bubble To Fuel Bitcoin’s Rise To $1 Million: Arthur Hayes

The debt-fueled artificial intelligence (AI) bubble may be close to bursting, creating a 2008-like credit crisis that could eventually drive Bitcoin’s price to $ 1 million, according to BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes.

In an Aug. 5 blog post, Hayes argued that the massive AI data center spending is emerging as a significant debt buildout and said he expects the AI boom to peak around 2027, when AI capital spending starts to decelerate and the bubble bursts sometimes in 2028 📉.

Hayes explained that this will lead to a rapid fiscal response from governments and the Federal Reserve that will offer fiscal support through more money printing to prevent a systemic collapse.

Hayes said that the inflation and financial debasement from the money printing will bolster Bitcoin’s price beyond $1 million. He wrote:

✍️ “Bitcoin emerged as a response to the irresponsible bailout of the subprime banksters, which, when you think about it, is an amazing feat. This time around, Bitcoin already exists and can now fulfil the dreams of many by hitting $1 million or higher. “

Hayes expects AI companies to gradually stop syphoning liquidity from cryptocurrency markets, as social excitement for frontier models fades and investors start questioning their returns.

Ethereum Researchers Issue Proposal To Reduce Validator Rewards 🔒

A group of leading Ethereum researchers proposed changing the network’s issuance policy to reduce validator rewards as the percentage of staked Ether continues to rise.

Researchers including Ethereum Foundation’s Justin Drake issued a new draft proposal called the “Tapered Issuance Burn,” assigned as EIP-8363. The proposal seeks to burn an increasing fraction of validators’ consensus rewards as the supply of staked ETH increases, proposing to burn 100% when it hits 50% of the supply ⚙️.

The proposal ignited widespread criticism for its potential to phase out solo validator incentives before larger institutions are affected, while some worried it could reduce institutional demand for Ether.

The percentage of staked Ether surpassed 33% of the supply earlier in April. One of the proposal’s co-authors, Jérôme de Tychey, commented that the EIP was necessary to remove the “incentive for stake growth beyond 50% of ETH supply.” 💎

He argued that the growing staked supply makes Ethereum less secure and that it poses supply concentration risks with large custodians and staking providers.

Coldcard Exploit Claims $100 Million In First Confirmed Waves 💸

CoinKite’s hardware Bitcoin wallet, ColdCard, was hit by a massive exploit that stole at least $100 million in funds across the first three confirmed attack waves.

Hackers discovered an unnoticed firmware RNG bug that remained unaddressed in the ColdCard wallet since 2021, which was exploited by at least 15 different attackers.

Galaxy Digital’s research arm said that losses exceeded 1,596 Bitcoin ($100 million) stolen across three confirmed attack waves from at least 7,300 victim addresses. The company also identified a fourth attack wave that may push losses to about 2,000 BTC ($130 million) upon final confirmation 🕵️‍♂️.

The ongoing attack triggered renewed concerns around the safety of self-custodial wallets and the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in discovering vulnerabilities in cryptocurrency protocols.

Dragonfly’s managing partner, Haseeb Qureshi, said that roughly “$2 💸 of AI hardening” could have prevented the Coldcard exploit and urged cryptocurrency companies to adopt more AI-based security fortification measures.

📊 Market Overview: 10x Research Predicts August Bitcoin Bottom, Warns Of More Miner Selling Pressure

Cryptocurrency markets extended their summer slump once more, as risk appetite was weighed down by the $100 million Coldcard exploit and the lack of progress with the passage of the U.S. CLARITY Act, with only days left until the Senate takes its August recess.

Bitcoin’s price traded mostly flat around $64,000 while Ether’s price sank nearly 2% to $1,868 during the past week, according to CoinStats data.

Still, the falling cryptocurrency valuations mean that Bitcoin could decline to find its bear market bottom in August, according to crypto analytics company 10x Research.

⚠️ The analytics provider said that a monthly close around $63,000 would confirm that Bitcoin bottomed in August, as it would turn several of the firm’s key indicators bullish. However, it warned investors of more incoming selling pressure during the month:

💬 “A quiet supply overhang from miners and treasury companies may be about to hit the market, right as the Fed’s newest voice tries to walk a tightrope between hawkish credibility and market pressure.”

Looking at technical chart patterns, Bitcoin’s lack of momentum from the $63,200 support may signal a deeper retracement towards $58,000, wrote crypto analyst Rekt Capital:

✍️ “As long as the orange support here produces weaker rallies, price will keep forming Lower Highs to produce an eventual breakdown deeper into the $58,000-$66,000 Range (blue-blue).”

The drastic decline in the market capitalization of Tether’s USDT stablecoin provided another crucial late bear market signal, wrote analytics provider CryptoQuant, citing Bitcoin’s historic correlation with USDT’s supply.

💬 “Historically, the market’s deepest USDT contraction phases have also marked points where selling pressure was closer to exhaustion than to further acceleration.”

🐦 Tweets & Memes

Is Saylor dumping more Bitcoin as the bear market is coming to an end 🐻?

Retail is selling into weakness as whales are buying up the discounted supply. A story as old as time…🐋

Senator Lummis is still hoping to see the CLARITY Act passed this week ⚖️.

SEC commissioner Pierce says crypto regulatory reform will continue with or without the CLARITY Act’s passage 📜.

Another coordinated memecoin pump and dump 🎭?

South Africa 🇿🇦 is looking to limit crypto outflows from the country.

Bitcoin miner Mara transfers a massive $2.34 billion in Bitcoin. More selling pressure?

🤖 Is the ai16z token beyond price recovery?

Thank you for reading the weekly CoinStats Scoop Newsletter.

CoinStats will continue to guide you through the world of crypto and DeFi. We’ll see you next week for another edition of CoinStats Scoop! 😎