What a week, amiright?
While we were still reeling from the COLDCARD exploit that stole more than $100 million from hardworking Bitcoiners, we got news that Saylor sold another 1,600+ BTC.
Then came the AI-powered attacks that took down critical Bitcoin services like Boltz and BTCPay Server.
Layer on top of that the Senate’s failure to get a vote on the CLARITY Act, miners dumping en masse and a chain split that marked the culmination of months of fighting that fractured the Bitcoin community, and you could make the case that this was one of the most brutal weeks in Bitcoin’s history.
And yet, despite all of that, Bitcoin’s price held firm in the mid-$60,000s, blocks kept getting mined on schedule, the community rallied together to find vulnerabilities before attackers could exploit them, and Bitcoin’s reputation as the honey badger earned another notch in its belt.
Bullish.
Other top stories from the week include:
Bitcoin Red Team becomes the community’s new superheroes.
Saylor goes on the 2nd biggest podcast in the world.
Bitcoin ETFs seeing their biggest inflows in a quarter.
Latest News
Adoption
Bitcoin Red Team, begins an AI-assisted security review of the Bitcoin ecosystem, finding weaknesses across 501 open-source projects to help defend against AI-empowered attackers.
BIP 110, a proposal restricting arbitrary data on Bitcoin, split into a minority chain after mandatory signaling began on Saturday, but stalled after mining just two blocks and now sits 100+ blocks behind Bitcoin.
BTCPay Server confirms attackers exploited a critical vulnerability to steal LND credentials and funds, urging affected users to immediately update to version 2.4.2 and check nodes for unauthorized activity.
Regulation
Deconflict offers free assistance to victims of the recent COLDCARD theft, helping organize evidence, navigate the reporting process and connect with appropriate law enforcement agencies across the globe.
Rob Hamilton, Red Team member, says OpenAI blocked further AI-assisted security research on a Bitcoin codebase after he responsibly disclosed vulnerabilities, forcing him to return to Chinese models.
Thailand confirms a 0% capital gains tax on Bitcoin and crypto, strengthening its tax position for digital-asset investors.
Markets
Boltz indefinitely suspends all Bitcoin swaps after ongoing AI-assisted cyberattacks outpaced its ability to secure the platform, disrupting dependent wallets and services such as Aqua Wallet and Bull Bitcoin.
Bitcoin ETFs record $853M in weekly net inflows, marking their strongest week in four months.
Strategy sells 1,638 BTC for $104.7 million, raises its USD Reserve to $4 billion, repurchases $81.2 million of STRC and sells $290 million in MSTR shares, further diluting shareholders.
Treasury
Michael Saylor appears on The Diary of a CEO, the world’s second-most-popular podcast, with his wide-ranging Bitcoin interview drawing 1.2 million views in its first three days.
Tuttle Capital files for the T-REX 2X Long Metaplanet Daily Target ETF, offering 200% of Metaplanet’s daily performance through swaps, with a 1.50% annual management fee for active traders.
STRC rebounds to its highest level since June’s collapse, closing Friday at $95.06, up roughly 6% this week and well above its June low of $71.25.
Mining
MARA secures $600 million through credit facilities collateralized by 18,750 BTC, funding its Long Ridge acquisition and expansion toward 2 GW of capacity for Bitcoin mining and AI/HPC workloads.
Luke Dashjr suggests Sept. 1 for a BIP-110 proof-of-work hard fork, while BIP author Dathon Ohm says supporters are developing a new algorithm to “fire” existing Bitcoin miners and pools, effectively creating a new coin.
Slipstream is opened as a permissionless public service by MARA, allowing vulnerable COLDCARD users to submit transactions directly to miners, avoiding public mempool exposure that could reveal weak multisig keys to attackers.
Politics
John Thune, Senate Majority Leader, files cloture to force a September vote on whether the Senate will consider the CLARITY Act, a procedural step generally requiring 60 votes to advance.
Bhutan’s government moved 435 BTC worth roughly $28 million to Binance after a month of inactivity, reportedly continuing Bitcoin sales to fund development of its planned Gelephu Mindfulness City project.
Crypto political spending approaches $200M ahead of the U.S. midterms as industry-backed PACs support pro-Bitcoin and digital-asset candidates across both parties.
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Bam’s 2 Sats
Bitcoin Had a Rough Week
Last weekend, which began with the Coldcard attack, was already shaping up to be a horrible one. Unfortunately, it didn’t end there.
Over the following days, attacks and disruptions across the Bitcoin ecosystem piled up one after another, almost making it feel coordinated. Were they? I guess we’ll never know. But let’s dive in.
Last week, we reported that around 1,300 BTC had been stolen in the Coldcard incident. Unfortunately, the attack was still ongoing.
Whether it was the original attacker or others who later joined in, the total eventually climbed above 2,000 BTC, drained from people who were simply trying to do the responsible thing: hold their own keys.
In true “misery loves company” fashion, the bad news surrounding self-custody didn’t end there.
A Week of Attacks and Disruptions
As the week began, Boltz announced it was halting its swap services, saying the growing wave of AI-assisted attacks was outpacing what its small team could handle.
No user funds were reported lost, but the shutdown still created a real problem for the ecosystem. Boltz had become an increasingly important piece of Bitcoin infrastructure, giving wallets and services a programmatic way to move between Bitcoin, Lightning and Liquid.
Its shutdown therefore had ripple effects across the ecosystem, particularly for wallets and projects that relied on Boltz to move liquidity between Bitcoin’s different layers like Aqua and BULL.
Then came another vulnerability, this time involving BTCPay Server.
BTCPay Server is a widely used, open-source Bitcoin payment processor that allows businesses to accept Bitcoin without relying on companies like Stripe, Coinbase Commerce or another third-party custodian.
The vulnerability allowed attackers to gain access to Lightning node credentials and steal funds from affected channels. While the exact number of victims remains difficult to determine, reports suggest around 71 entities were affected, with nearly 2 BTC drained.
And the drama still wasn’t over.
Over the weekend, we also saw the BIP-110 activation attempt, which triggered a chain split. The BIP-110 side, however, quickly stalled after mining just two blocks, failing to attract enough hashrate to keep moving forward.
The leaders of the BIP-110 movement are now talking about “firing the miners” by changing Bitcoin’s Proof-of-Work algorithm, a move that would permanently split their chain from Bitcoin and effectively create an entirely new coin.
All in all, it was a pretty demoralizing week if you were only paying attention to the growing list of attacks, vulnerabilities, fractures within the community and lost funds.
There was, however, one encouraging side to all of this.
The Bright Side
Despite the hacks, a significant part of the Bitcoin community seemed to come out of the weekend more motivated to be proactive. Developers and security researchers increasingly began talking about using AI themselves to search for vulnerabilities, stress-test software and patch weaknesses before attackers could exploit them.
And even after everything that happened, from the fallout of a $100+ million COLDCARD exploit to the failure of landmark crypto legislation to reach the Senate floor and Bitcoin’s first deliberate chain split since 2017, Bitcoin itself held surprisingly firm. It even finished the week in positive territory, while Bitcoin ETFs also managed to post net inflows for the week.
by bitcoin archive
Maybe that tells us something. The storm may finally be passing, and better days could be ahead. For the first time in a while, I’m feeling optimistic again.
Keep stacking.
- Bam
