Bitcoin has two forks on the calendar for 2026. Developer Paul Sztorc plans a deliberate hard fork called eCash, activating at block height 964,000, expected around August 21. Separately, a contested soft fork proposal called BIP-110 carries the chance of splitting the chain by accident during its August signaling window. Both events raise the same question for anyone holding BTC: why does a chain split hand out a second coin, and why is the exchange rate always 1:1 at the moment it happens.

Bitcoin is hovering below $64,000, but where it lands next is anyone’s wager. We asked a roster of artificial intelligence (AI) models to cut through the market noise and name their BTC price for Aug. 1.

Patrick Shyu, the former Meta and Google engineer known online as Techlead, warns that quantum computing and decaying miner incentives are two undefused threats hanging over Bitcoin.

This week, the Bitcoin Policy Institute (BPI) filed to intervene as a defendant on July 10 in a New York lawsuit seeking legal title to nearly 40,000 dormant bitcoin addresses, adding an institutional voice to a case that already pits plaintiffs’ counsel against a proposed amicus curiae.

U.S. spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) attracted $90.44 million on July 10 while ether funds added $18.43 million, sealing the bitcoin products’ first weekly net inflow since May. Blackrock’s IBIT supplied $86.83 million of the day’s total.

Apple filed a 41-page complaint against OpenAI in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on July 10, accusing the ChatGPT maker of a coordinated campaign to steal hardware trade secrets. OpenAI says it has “no interest in other companies’ trade secrets.”

Metaplanet Inc. is moving past simple bitcoin accumulation and into product design.

The total cryptocurrency market capitalization has climbed $170 billion since July 1, reaching $2.28 trillion on July 11 as bitcoin changed hands above $64,100. Recovering ETF flows and improving sentiment are powering the rebound.

U.S. spot XRP exchange-traded funds (ETFs) ended July 10 holding $996.65 million in combined net assets, just $3.35 million shy of the $1 billion milestone. Lifetime inflows stand at $1.48 billion even as weekly has momentum stalled.

Blockchain security firm Peckshield says an apparent exploit of the Hedera network has seen $5.25 million in stolen funds bridged to Ethereum. The attacker’s wallet, first funded through the crypto mixer Tornado Cash, holds roughly $5.25 million in ether and wrapped bitcoin.

A report by BitMEX reveals that perpetual swap funding rate disparities are driven by deep structural mechanics rather than simple short-term market sentiment.

Brazil’s Finance Ministry is imposing the strictest advertising regime yet on the country’s licensed betting operators, mandating cigarette-style health warnings on every ad, banning pundits and influencers from nudging viewers toward wagers, and threatening fines of up to 20% of revenue – with the rules taking effect July 17, mid-World Cup, as bet-saturated tournament broadcasts draw mounting criticism.

Federal prosecutors alleged a Ryuk ransomware operation extracted more than $15 million in bitcoin from U.S. organizations. An Armenian national admitted participating in attacks that disrupted hundreds of corporate systems and forced victims to purchase decryption keys with cryptocurrency.

Crypto adoption is evolving in unexpected ways across global markets, revealing deeper changes in user behavior, according to Binance co-founder and co-CEO Yi He. Drawing on activity from millions of Binance users, she identified three emerging regional trends that are shaping how people use digital assets.

Federal prosecutors charged an imprisoned man with helping transfer cryptocurrency forfeited to the U.S. government. The indictment alleges roughly $290,000 left a restrained Kraken account through exchanges, mixing services, and a foreign bank.