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Bitcoin Bear-Market RSI Bottom ‘Will Happen Again’ in 2026, Says Trader

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Bitcoin Bear-Market RSI Bottom ‘Will Happen Again’ in 2026, Says Trader

Bitcoin (BTC) should repeat history and put in a bear-market bottom when a classic indicator hits zero, a trader says.

Key points:

  • Bitcoin classic two-month stochastic RSI signals are valid this bear market, Max Crypto said.
  • The bear market will be over once the indicator reaches zero again.
  • RSI divergences provided advance notice of the BTC price rebound beyond $64,000 this month.

Bitcoin stochastic RSI bottom signal “will happen again”

In an X post at the weekend, Max Crypto went on record to forecast the end of the 2026 bear market when the stochastic relative strength index (RSI) hits a new swing low.

“Stoch” RSI is a derivative of RSI, a popular leading indicator, with a greater bias on recent price moves.

“Every time the 2M Stoch RSI had a bullish cross and dropped to 0, $BTC bottomed,” Max Crypto wrote in accompanying commentary. 

“This happened in 2014, 2018, and 2022, and it will happen again.”

BTC/USD two-month chart with stochastic RSI data. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

Two-month stoch RSI measures 4.81, having dropped into its sub-30 “oversold” zone during March, data from TradingView confirms. Current levels were last observed just over three years ago.

Stoch RSI has already formed a focus for market participants this year, with daily moves previously drawing comparisons to the 2022 bear market. 

In April, crypto trader Quantum Ascend described BTC price history as “playing out nearly perfectly.”

Bear-market RSI cues keep coming

Turning to traditional RSI data, traders continue to look for bullish cues as BTC/USD treads water above $60,000.

Related: BTC price bull market to begin in September? Five things to know in Bitcoin this week

On Sunday, trader and investor BitcoinHyper eyed a bullish divergence against the S&P 500.

At the start of June, daily RSI dropped to just 15, marking one out of just six of what trader Osemka later called “extremely powerful selling events.”

“There’s been one case where extreme $BTC RSI (1D at 15) failed to break the lows and only managed to sweep it. That was at the end of accumulation range in 2015,” he continued on Tuesday. 

“I’m mentioning it now since we have also only swept the low on such powerful move down.”

BTC/USD one-day chart with RSI data. Source: Osemka/X

Osemka implied that a deeper RSI retracement could still emerge, marking a price reversal in-line with previous bear markets.

Bitcoin’s return above $64,000 this month, meanwhile, came after bullish RSI divergences across multiple time frames.

UK Government Defers Capital Gains on Certain Crypto with ‘No Gain, No Loss’ Approach

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UK Government Defers Capital Gains on Certain Crypto with ‘No Gain, No Loss’ Approach

The UK’s tax authority plans to treat “certain disposals” related to cryptocurrency lending and liquidity pools as transactions that would effectively defer the country’s capital gains requirements.

In a Monday announcement, HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) said that starting on April 6, 2027, it would adopt a “no gain, no loss” approach to disposals involving crypto loans and liquidity pools. According to the tax authority, this measure would defer capital gains tax on digital assets “until an economic disposal.” 

“This measure will support fairness in the tax system,” said the UK tax authority. “It aligns the tax treatment more closely with the economics of these arrangements by ensuring that gains and losses are generally recognized only when the participant makes an economic disposal of the cryptoassets.”

The measure, expected to impact about 700,000 individuals and trustees, would represent a significant change from the authority’s 2022 guidance on crypto liquidity pools and lending following a consultation period. Under UK law for 2025-2026, taxpayers pay between 18% to 24% for capital gains related to crypto transactions depending on whether they qualify as basic-rate or higher-rate.

Related: UK tokenization push could add as much as $44B to annual output by 2035: Report

According to the tax authority, it would treat crypto transactions as “no gain, no loss” under UK capital gains laws for the acquisition or disposal of an interest in a lending arrangement in exchange for the same type of asset, borrowed assets acquired at market value and similar conditions with automated market makers.

“This is the right direction, mainly driven by the industry feedback demonstrating that any other approach would cause significant admin burden for the tax payer,” said Aave founder and CEO Stani Kulechov in a Monday X post.

Crypto candidate enters Nigel Farage’s by-election race

In UK politics, Reform leader Nigel Farage will not stand completely uncontested in a by-election caused by his resignation last week amid reports of the politician receiving contributions from billionaires tied to the crypto industry.

On Tuesday, the leader of the Solana community group Superteam UK, Stephen Newnham, said he will run as an independent candidate against Farage and others. The by-election representing Clacton is scheduled for Aug. 13 and will include candidates like comedian and author Jon Harvey in costume as Count Binface, a self-described “independent space warrior” wearing a helmet in the shape of a trash bin.

Farage triggered the by-election with his resignation, saying that he wanted the people of Clacton to judge his actions. The Reform figure reportedly received a $6.7 million donation from crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne, which he described as a ”reward” for the UK’s exit from the European Union and later as a “gift,” and other financial assistance from George Cottrell, a convicted fraudster linked to a crypto casino.

Magazine: Strategy became a symbol of the dot-com crash: Could history repeat?

Some U.S. Senate Democrats come out against Clarity Act, calling it a ‘corrupt’ bill

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Some U.S. Senate Democrats come out against Clarity Act, calling it a ‘corrupt’ bill

The Clarity Act will need to be sold to a large number of Democrats in the coming days, if it’s going to advance from the Senate before Congress’ summer break and the focus on this fall’s midterm elections. Though a new and potentially final draft is set to emerge as soon as Tuesday, it’s still absent a resolution on what may be the last and most important sticking point: a section that bans senior government officials — including the president — from personally engaging in the crypto industry.

That ethics provision remains at the forefront of the debate, and many Democrats have said they can’t vote for a Clarity Act that doesn’t have it. Those vows also came from the Democrats who have been at the negotiating table and voted yes on the bill when it was approved by the Senate Banking Committee.

“If this system does not stop Trump’s corruption of the entire industry, this bill is worthless,” said Murphy, who hasn’t been among Democrats at the negotiating table with Republicans. “If it protects Trump’s dominance over an industry that he will have more control to regulate, in fact, the bill is, in and of itself, a fundamental corruption if it gives Trump’s corruption the protection of law.”

The Clarity Act isn’t a ticket to sanctions evasion, actually

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The Clarity Act isn’t a ticket to sanctions evasion, actually

Ironically, some critics of the bill have pointed to recent reporting by the Wall Street Journal on the Hong Kong exchange CoinEx as evidence of the risk. CoinEx is actually a story of how to use a public ledger to track, trace, and disrupt nation state activity.

Investigators traced roughly 3.84 billion dollars in transactions tied to Iran, connecting wallets controlled by Iran’s central bank to sanctioned military networks and to funds stolen separately by North Korean hackers. That level of detail is knowable today because it happened on a public blockchain, the same visibility critics are treating as the risk.

What the Clarity Act actually contains

Clarity contains nearly twenty distinct provisions addressing anti-money laundering, sanctions, and law enforcement authority.

As the bill is currently drafted, digital asset service providers get brought fully under the Bank Secrecy Act for the first time, with risk assessments, internal controls, a compliance officer, training, audits, and suspicious activity reporting all required.

Real-time information sharing between exchanges and law enforcement gets written into statute as recognized practice — the Beacon Network model of real time interdiction, seizure and disruption — replacing voluntary industry coordination with a legal standard.

An independent working group gets tasked with developing AI-powered tools to detect and disrupt terrorist financing and money laundering in digital asset markets. Kiosk operators face wallet pinning, hold periods, and daily transaction caps for first-time users, paired with blockchain intelligence requirements to catch scammers before funds leave the platform.

Dragonfly Pushes Back on DeFi AI ‘Hackpocalypse’ Fears

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Dragonfly Pushes Back on DeFi AI ‘Hackpocalypse’ Fears

Fears that artificial intelligence would trigger a wave of catastrophic decentralized finance (DeFi) hacks in what was coined as a “hackpocalypse” have not materialized, according to Dragonfly managing partner Haseeb Qureshi.

While the incident count grew to a record high, the median size of hacks has dipped below $500,000 this year, down from over $2 million in 2025. Qureshi argued that this shows malicious actors using AI are targeting “small protocols and abandonware” while larger DeFi protocols have fortified themselves against AI’s threat.

Excluding outlier months with large incidents, such as the Bybit hack in February 2025 along with the Drift Protocol and KelpDAO exploits in April of this year, 2026 has still seen less value hacked per month than the previous year, said Qureshi.

The comments come in response to concerns shared by blockchain security platform OpenZeppelin’s founder, Manuel Aráoz, who said that he considers “all of DeFi unsafe,” citing the growing ability of AI coding agents to identify smart contract vulnerabilities. 

Broader industry datasets, which include centralized platforms, wallet compromises and phishing, as well as DeFi exploits, offer a less reassuring picture. In April, crypto hacks surged, resulting in losses of around $644 million, marking an over one-year high last seen in February 2025 when the $1.4 billion Bybit hack pushed monthly losses to $1.46 billion, according to DefiLlama.

Source: Haseeb

Crypto hacks fall 47% in H1, but crypto industry not necessarily safer: CertiK

Losses to cryptocurrency hacks fell 46.8% year-on-year to $1.32 billion in the first half of 2026, but blockchain security company CertiK argued that the Web3 industry’s lower headline losses do not necessarily mean the industry is safer.

Related: Belgian police arrest suspected phishing gang leader tied to $572K theft

While it marks a significant drop in dollar value, last year’s figures were skewed by the $1.4 billion Bybit hack, the largest in crypto history, CertiK told Cointelegraph.

During the second quarter of 2026, over 70% of the losses stemmed from the KelpDAO and Drift Protocol exploits, which were largely attributed to North Korean state-sponsored hackers.

Monthly change in crypto exploit amounts and number of incidents across H1. Source: CertiK 

The data underscores the continued threat that North Korean hackers pose to the crypto industry, having stolen more than $6 billion worth of crypto since 2017, TRM Labs estimated in April. 

Magazine: Does Botanix’s failure prove Bitcoiners don’t care about DeFi?

Binance bets on becoming a crypto ‘super app’ as stablecoins reshape growth

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Binance bets on becoming a crypto ‘super app’ as stablecoins reshape growth

Binance believes its next phase of growth will come from payments and financial services rather than cryptocurrency trading alone, as stablecoins reshape how people use digital assets, according to Shunyet Jan, the exchange’s head of spot trading and derivatives business.

In an interview with CoinDesk on Binance’s ninth anniversary, Jan outlined the strategy as Binance and shared a glimpse of the platform’s future priorities.

“We’re trying to not just be a crypto exchange, but be a super app that involves payment,” Jan said. “If you think of us as a payment provider, then that number becomes much bigger.”

Jan said Binance’s new strategy reflects how people are increasingly using cryptocurrencies beyond trading. While trading remains at the core of Binance’s business, he said stablecoins are increasingly being used for payments and transfers, creating a larger market than trading alone.

“I don’t think it’s really leveled off,” Jan said. “What’s happened is that a lot of it is driven by stablecoin usage.”

CleanSpark Signs $6.6 Billion Data Center Lease As Bitcoin Miner Pivots To Compute

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CleanSpark Signs $6.6 Billion Data Center Lease As Bitcoin Miner Pivots To Compute

CleanSpark, the Nasdaq-listed bitcoin miner, said on July 14 that it has signed a 20-year infrastructure lease with an unnamed high-investment-grade global technology company at its campus in Sandersville, Georgia. 

The deal marks the firm’s largest step from pure bitcoin mining toward high-performance computing for hyperscale clients.

The lease covers data center infrastructure that will support 175 megawatts of critical IT load. CleanSpark expects the initial term to generate $6.6 billion in contracted revenue, a figure that would climb to $11.6 billion if the tenant exercises both extension options. 

The company has recently announced that it would repurpose part of its electricity capacity and mining infrastructure to power AI data centers, aiming to diversify beyond bitcoin mining. 

CleanSparks’ average annual net operating income from the agreement should reach $330 million. First deliveries are due in the fourth quarter of 2027.

In a further sign of the tenant’s appetite, the two sides executed a letter of intent and an exclusivity arrangement covering CleanSpark’s entire Texas portfolio, a base of up to 885 megawatts of secured and planned power capacity. Should that convert into firm contracts, CleanSpark’s transition into an infrastructure landlord for artificial-intelligence and cloud workloads would deepen.

CleanSpark holds 13,924 bitcoin

The announcement lands as CleanSpark’s core mining business posts records. The company produced 614 bitcoin in early July and lifted its operational hashrate to 50 exahashes per second, a company high. 

Treasury holdings rose to 13,924 bitcoin, one of the larger corporate stashes among public miners. Management has kept much of its mined bitcoin rather than sell into the market, a bet on the asset’s long-term price.

Wall Street has warmed to the compute pivot. Citizens began coverage with an Outperform rating and a $27 price target, citing the shift toward hyperscale compute capacity. Chardan lifted its target to $19 from $16 and kept a Buy rating. Both notes framed the Sandersville lease as proof that CleanSpark can monetize its power and land assets beyond mining, where margins swing with bitcoin’s price and network difficulty.

Investor reaction has been mixed. Shares of CleanSpark gained more than 20% in pre-market on the news but have since dropped to 9% gains on the day. 

The Georgia lease offers somewhat of a hedge. Contracted rent from a creditworthy tenant provides a revenue stream that does not rise and fall with hash prices, while the company keeps its mining fleet and bitcoin treasury intact. 

The next test is execution: bringing 175 megawatts online before the close of 2027 and turning the Texas letter of intent into signed leases.

ABA, Banking Associations Push Back Against CLARITY Act Yield Provisions

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ABA, Banking Associations Push Back Against CLARITY Act Yield Provisions

A wide swath of the US banking industry is urging Senate leaders to amend the stablecoin yield provisions of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act (CLARITY) now under consideration. 

The American Bankers Association (ABA), the Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA) and 76 other state banking associations sent a joint letter to Senate leaders that claimed that the current language on stablecoin interest, yield and rewards is too ambiguous and argued that new amendments need to prevent payment stablecoins from acting as deposit substitutes rather than pure transaction tools.

The joint letter, which showed support for the broader bill, said the ABA is concerned that ambiguities within the bill “could encourage stablecoin arrangements to effectively function as substitutes for deposits, despite Congress’ longstanding and clearly stated intent that payment stablecoins should serve as transaction tools rather than store-of-value products,” according to a press release published on Monday.

This marks the latest pushback from the US banking industry against the act’s stablecoin yield provisions and comes just days ahead of the bill’s scheduled House of Representatives hearing on Friday. The bill aims to establish the first regulatory framework for digital assets in the US.

The banking groups said that the current draft poses the risk of a “deposit flight,” urging lawmakers to revise section 404 to “clarify the prohibition on interest and yield and help ensure that the prohibition cannot be circumvented through alternative incentive structures.” 

The pushback reinforces Galaxy Digital’s prediction that the Senate is running out of time to pass the bill before the end of the year, due to a looming Senate recess and other congressional priorities. Galaxy Digital cut its odds of the CLARITY Act becoming law in 2026 to 50% on June 26, citing the lack of a unified Senate Banking-Agriculture text, no firm floor schedule and a narrowing legislative window before lawmakers leave Washington.

ABA, ICBA join state associations in urging Senate to strengthen stablecoin yield provisions in Clarity Act. Source: ABA.com

Bankers, Dems push back against stablecoin yield elements

The CLARITY Act cleared the Senate Banking Committee in May, but met pushback from Democrats and the banking industry, who argued that it would allow crypto firms to offer yields on stablecoins without facing the same requirements as traditional banks. 

In a May interview, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said that the banking industry would continue to “fight” against the current version of the CLARITY Act and said that crypto companies wanting to pay yield on stablecoins should apply for banking charters.

Related: A16z’s Andreessen lands Federal Reserve role as AI reshapes policy debate

Meanwhile, the CLARITY Act secured its second public endorsement from a major US law enforcement organization on Friday, when the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association (FLEOA) said it submitted a letter to the US Senate Banking Committee endorsing the CLARITY Act, while calling for strengthening accountability in decentralized finance (DeFi) and for preserving the investigators’ existing powers.

At the beginning of June, more than 200 crypto companies and related organizations urged the US Senate to pass the CLARITY Act in a letter shared by crypto lobby group Stand With Crypto.

Magazine: From Bitcoin critics to blockchain believers: The 5 biggest crypto backflips

Humanity Protocol to Prioritize Operational Security following $36M Hack

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Humanity Protocol to Prioritize Operational Security following $36M Hack

Humanity Protocol will refocus its cybersecurity efforts on operational security following a June $36 million exploit that was traced back to a compromised employee laptop, according to the founder of the decentralized identity company, Terence Kwok.

In an interview with Cointelegraph, Kwok said that the exploit stemmed from last year’s mainnet launch, when several production keys were inadvertently backed up onto the laptop that was compromised, including admin hot wallet keys and a quorum of multisig owner keys across both chains.  He said:

“The hard lesson here is that operational security is as critical as smart-contract security, and we’re rebuilding accordingly.”

The exploit and Humanity Protocol’s action highlight an increase in cryptocurrency hackers refocusing their attacks on staff-level vulnerabilities and operational shortcomings, rather than exploiting smart contract code.

Humanity Protocol was exploited last month, when a compromised employee’s laptop enabled attackers to steal $36 million in Humanity (H) tokens. The token’s current market cap is roughly $211 million, according to CoinMarketCap data.

Blockchain security company Quantstamp said that the malicious attachment that was delivered through a phishing email pointed to the involvement of North Korea-linked threat actors. The malicious attachment was disguised as a token lockup schedule update from South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb and installed malware, giving attackers remote access to the machine.

The phishing email that led to the Humanity Protocol compromise.
Source: Quantstamp

North Korea-linked threat actors were tied to at least $578 million of the $634 million stolen in crypto-related incidents in April alone. 

Related: AI has not triggered DeFi ‘hackpocalypse,’ Dragonfly partner says

Phishing and wallet compromises lead attack vectors in H1 2026

The Humanity Protocol exploit occurred during a resurgence of cryptocurrency exploits that stemmed from operational failures and social engineering schemes.

Phishing drove the majority of the first quarter losses for a total of $508 million, while wallet compromises emerged as the biggest attack vector in the second quarter, contributing $807 million in losses, according to blockchain security company CertiK.

Monthly change in crypto exploit amounts and number of incidents across H1. Source: CertiK 

To be sure, crypto losses to hacks fell 46.8% year-on-year to $1.32 billion in the first half of 2026, but CertiK said that the drop was misleading due to the $1.4 billion Bybit hack in early 2025 and stressed that North Korean malicious actors continue threatening the crypto industry.

During the second quarter of 2026, more than 70% of the losses stemmed from the Drift Protocol and KelpDAO exploits, which were also widely attributed to North Korean state-sponsored hackers.

Magazine: Does Botanix’s failure prove Bitcoiners don’t care about DeFi? 

Mizuho turns bearish on stablecoin issuer Circle, citing Open USD competition

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Mizuho turns bearish on stablecoin issuer Circle, citing Open USD competition

Japanese investment bank Mizuho downgraded Circle (CRCL) to underperform from neutral and slashed its price target to $50 from $85, arguing that OpenUSD’s business model threatens the stablecoin issuer’s long-term economics.

Circle shares were trading 0.6% lower at $62.63 at publication time.

Open USD, a dollar-backed stablecoin unveiled June 30 by the Open Standard consortium, “could fundamentally alter CRCL’s business model, which relies on retaining a large portion of the treasury yield to drive revenues,” analysts led by Dan Dolev said in the Tuesday note to clients.

The consortium counts more than 140 partners, including Mastercard (MA), Stripe, Coinbase (COIN) and BlackRock (BLK).

USDC has also lost momentum in recent months, with its circulating supply falling to about $73 billion from nearly $80 billion in March. The decline comes as the stablecoin market has shrunk by roughly $10 billion since May amid softer crypto trading activity and growing competition from newly regulated issuers.

Unlike Circle’s USDC model, which captures reserve income before sharing a portion with partners such as Coinbase and Binance, Open USD charges a small operating fee and distributes most reserve income to issuers and distributors, the analysts said.

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