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House’s Crypto Markets Bill on Track, But Some in Industry Hope For Senate Overhaul

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Crypto industry insiders so far expect the long-awaited House of Representatives bill to set up rules for U.S. crypto markets will garner at least 30 Democrat voters when it reaches time for a vote as soon as Wednesday afternoon, alongside the 220-member majority of Republicans in the chamber.

Even as much of the sector prepares to celebrate one of its most consequential legislative wins, some in the industry still want to fix what they see as serious flaws in the Digital Asset Markets Clarity Act when it moves to the Senate. That may be an option, because crypto lobbyists have been advised by Senate contacts that the chamber expects to write its own bill, which will have some strong overlap with Clarity but may take different approaches in key areas.

«After years of regulatory unclarity and regulation by enforcement, the Clarity Act passing the House will be a major and welcome step, even if it isn’t perfect,» Chen Arad, co-founder and chief experience officer at Solidus Labs, said in a statement to CoinDesk. When the bill gets to the Senate, he said he’d expect more work on «jurisdictional clarity» between the regulators — the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Behind the scenes, in venues including group phone calls among crypto executives and their lawmakers allies, leaders have urged the diverse crypto crowd to show a united front on the legislation to finally establish U.S. regulations for the industry, according to people familiar with the discussions. But the decentralized finance (DeFi) arm of the digital assets space — for one — has had significant reservations about the wording of the Clarity Act.

If the legislation passes with a bipartisan surge this week, it next heads to the Senate for consideration. House Republicans took to calling this «Crypto Week,» and they’re already moving on procedural votes Tuesday to tee up the more consequential bill votes, with the Clarity Act expected on Wednesday and the GENIUS Act on Thursday.

President Donald Trump urged Republicans to get behind the crypto legislative push on Tuesday, boasting in a post on Truth Social that it’s putting the U.S. ahead of foreign competitors in China and Europe.

«We are leading the World, and will work hard with the Senate and the House to get even more Legislation on this passed!» Trump concluded.

Senate do-over?

The lengthy Clarity Act would establish a wholly new regulatory regime for oversight of the crypto markets, setting clear definitions for different types of digital assets and assigning the watchdog agencies to specific roles — most notably elevating the CFTC as a primary regulator of most of the crypto sector’s trading, because its most popular asset (BTC) is a commodity.

While Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott has said the Clarity Act will be a «strong template» for the Senate’s work, the Senate demonstrated with the other major crypto bill, the stablecoin-regulating Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act, that it may favor its own version. House lawmakers openly expressed concerns as recently as Monday night that details of their Clarity Act will be ignored by their Senate counterparts. Last week, the House acknowledged it would dump its own stablecoin bill in favor of the Senate version rather than try to reconcile the two pieces of legislation.

Industry lobbyists have been eagerly awaiting the specific language of the Senate’s own market structure bill, having so far only received a list of principles the key Republican lawmakers intended to follow in its drafting. As the lobbyists wait, the Senate Agriculture Committee — one of the two panels that needs to sign off on the legislation — is holding its opening hearing on the topic on Tuesday afternoon.

Among the points of debate between the chambers may be the maturity test in the Clarity Act that would effectively draw a border delineating whether a project belongs under the securities jurisdiction (SEC) or commodities oversight (CFTC).

«It’s great that the bill encourages blockchains to decentralize,» said Linda Jeng, founder and CEO of Digital Self Labs and an academic who has focused on crypto. «But there could be unintended consequences granting the SEC and CFTC with the authority to determine if a blockchain is ‘mature.'»

That’s one of the central tenets of the Clarity Act, the method by which a project can eventually move into a decentralized status that pulls it out of the reach of securities regulation. And it’s a component that some within the DeFi space argue isn’t being handled fairly.

DeFi insiders told CoinDesk that there’s insufficient protection for self-custody of digital assets in the bill and that its maturity test would favor a few incumbent projects, making it harder for new entrants to compete. They also shared concerns about the need to make sure federal preemption over the patchwork of state rules is clear, and one executive called for expanding current language about exemptions for «digital commodity» transactions to be expanded to «digital assets,» because DeFi projects would struggle if they were required to pre-determine whether each action did or didn’t involve a commodity under the law’s definition.

When the Senate takes the reins, the chamber will be further deluged with crypto interests looking for such changes. And if it writes a different market structure bill, the House may be pressured to vote on that rewrite without making further changes, if the situation with the GENIUS Act repeats. Congress is already likely to press past Trump’s initial August deadline for crypto legislation, and the president has been eager for results.

In the end, even the Senate’s work won’t be the last word, because once a regulatory bill becomes law, the relevant watchdog agencies have to write their own rules to implement it — a complex process that can take more than a year to complete and longer to put it into effect.

But the House has to act first before any of the rest can begin.

House progress

As the Clarity Act vote approaches, digital assets lobbyists are laser-focused on the number of Democrats that ultimately add their yes votes with Republicans. During last year’s vote on the predecessor bill, the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act (FIT21), 71 Democrats threw their hats in, though the Senate never acted.

This time, advocates hope for another big, bipartisan number that will give the Senate a hefty push on the House’s market structure ideas. (The Senate’s own GENIUS Act drew an impressive 68-30 approval in a chamber that’s accustomed to scraping by with razor-thin votes.)

House Democratic leaders have chosen not to erect a roadblock for their own members on this bill, so they’ll be free to vote as they wish, said Rashan Colbert, the U.S. policy director for the Crypto Council for Innovation, noting it as an important development removing headwinds from crypto-friendly Democrats.

«If we can get an overwhelming bipartisan vote here, then this clearly becomes a must-do priority,» Colbert said in a CoinDesk interview. «If it’s a disappointing number, then I think it becomes harder,» he added.Representative Maxine Waters, the ranking Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, has been trying to marshal a resistance to the bill. She has some prominent allies in the AFL-CIO and in the North American Securities Administrators Association, the organization of state-level securities regulators.

Consumer advocates have also weighed in, with a coalition of them saying in a letter to Congress that the Clarity Act «guarantees the crypto industry will be given kid-glove treatment by captured regulators, putting investors and the economy at significant risk.»

Still, the industry is counting on a wide margin of Democrat support — especially from younger Democrats that have routinely bucked their leadership on crypto matters.

«It was a long road to get here, and I think that it’s not practical to believe that we’re going to be able to spin up this type of momentum again,» CCI’s Colbert said. «For those who want regulation, this is an important moment to focus and be supportive of the process.»

Read More: House Gears Up for Crypto Market Structure Vote on Wednesday, Stablecoins Thursday

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Strategy’s Convertible Bond Prices Surge as Stock Advances Back Toward Record High

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Disclaimer: The analyst who wrote this article owns shares in Strategy.

Strategy’s (MSTR) aggressive bitcoin BTC acquisition strategy has dramatically boosted the value of its convertible debt.

With bitcoin steady near its record price and the company’s shares rebounding toward $450, five of the six bonds outstanding are deep in the money, meaning the stock price exceeds their conversion prices. Only the 2029 note, with a high $672.40 conversion price, remains out of reach.

The Tysons Corner, Virginia-based company issued convertible notes totaling $8.2 billion in notional principal with ultra-low average coupons of just 0.421%. The bonds, which mature between 2028 and 2032, carry a set price based on MSTR and BTC levels at the time of issues at which the debt can turn into the common stock.

MSTR stock has rebounded from as low as $235 three months ago and is within sight of late last year’s $543 record. The rally has pushed the bonds’ market value to $13.4 billion, roughly $5.2 billion above their notional value. The premium reflects how much investors are willing to pay in secondary markets, driven by the bonds’ potential to convert into valuable equity.

Of late, however, Strategy has paused issuing new convertible notes. That may be due to more cautious sentiment as reflected in the options market.

As of July 15, MSTR’s implied volatility sits at 53.1%, well below past highs above 200%. Implied volatility is an indication of how much the options traders believes the stock will move in the future based on their market positioning.

Open interest remains healthy at over 2.4 million contracts, but both the open interest put-call ratio (0.93) and the volume put-call ratio (0.62) indicate neutral sentiment, suggesting traders are not aggressively betting on a major surge in the stock. A put is a cautious position that offers protection against price declines in the underlying asset while a call is a bullish instrument that allows traders to profit when the price rises.

Additionally, trading volume is just 20% of its 30-day average, hinting at reduced speculative interest.

This muted options activity implies that while MSTR’s price is high enough to put five of the six convertible bonds deep in the money, there may not be the same frothy market enthusiasm that allowed the company to issue convertibles at ultra-low coupons and favorable terms.

Investors might demand higher yields or lower conversion prices for any new issuance, which could dilute existing shareholders sooner.

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Crypto Exchange BigONE Confirms $27M Hack, Vows Full User Compensation

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Crypto exchange BigONE has confirmed a $27 million breach stemming from a hot wallet exploit on July 16 and states that all user funds will be fully reimbursed.

In an official statement, the exchange said it detected “abnormal movements” tied to a third-party attack and has since identified and contained the vector. All private keys remain secure, and no additional losses are expected.

BigONE is working with blockchain security firm SlowMist to track the stolen assets, with fund tracing already underway across Bitcoin, ethereum, Tron, Solana, and BNB Chain, per a release.

What Was Stolen?

The stolen tokens span across major and minor assets, including:

  • 120 BTC
  • 350 ETH
  • 9.5B SHIB
  • 7.1M USDT (multi-chain)
  • 538,000 DOGE
  • 1,800 SOL
  • 1 WBTC
  • 20,730 XIN
  • 15.7M CELR
  • 25,487 UNI
  • 16,071 LEO

BigONE said user balances are safe, and all losses will be covered in full using a combination of internal reserves (BTC, ETH, SOL, USDT, XIN) and external borrowing to restore liquidity for niche tokens.

Deposits and trading are expected to resume within hours, but withdrawals will be delayed until further security reinforcements are complete.

“We sincerely apologize for the impact this incident may have caused,” the team wrote. “All investigation progress and handling results will be communicated with full transparency.”

The incident marks yet another major exchange hack in 2025, pushing total crypto exploit losses beyond $2.1 billion for the year.

Read more: Crypto Investors Lost $2.5B to Hacks and Scams in the First Half of 2025: Certik

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Bitlayer’s BitVM Bridge Debuts Its Mainnet, Offers Trust-Minimized Bitcoin DeFi

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Bitlayer’s BitVM Bridge launched its mainnet on Wednesday, enabling bitcoin (BTC) liquidity for decentralized finance through a trust-minimized framework.

The bridge keeps users’ BTC safe by locking it in the BitVM smart contract that operates under the assumption that at least one honest market participant exists, ready to expose malicious attempts to move funds.

This trust-minimized setup starkly contrasts traditional custodians that involve centralized custody or distributed custodianship.

«Over the past year, we’ve dedicated significant resources to developing the BitVM bridge, and we’re thrilled to finally deliver this milestone to the community,» Bitlayer co-founder, Kevin He said in a press release shared with CoinDesk.

«Post-mainnet deployment, our focus shifts to scaling asset compatibility and deepening integration with additional blockchain networks,» He added.

YBTC, a gateway to BTC DeFi

Central to Bitlayer is YBTC, a token that directly represents the user’s locked bitcoin. Its value is pegged 1:1 with BTC, and it opens decentralized finance to BTC holders looking to generate additional yield by allowing them to stake, lend, borrow, trade and provide liquidity across multi-chain decentralized exchanges.

The token’s security stems directly from the transparent and verifiable BitVM smart contract – unlike wrapped BTC (such as WBTC), which relies on a trusted central entity to hold the actual BTC.

Note that YBTC is distinct from Bitlayer’s native token, BTR, which is used for governance, fees and staking within the ecosystem and is slated to be listed on major centralized exchanges.

Front-and-reclaim model

Typically, eliminating centralized custodians implies longer waiting times, especially in the case of fraud-proof systems like Bitlayer. Here, while transactions are assumed to be honest, anyone watching can step in to prove if something went wrong.

To allow enough time for these crucial security checks, there’s a built-in waiting period, typically seven days, during which a fraudulent transaction could be challenged. This can lead to longer withdrawal times.

However, Bitlayer employs an innovative «front-and-reclaim» model, transferring the waiting period to specialized brokers or third-party liquidity providers. These entities provide the withdrawn BTC from their own funds to users within approximately one hour. Meanwhile, they wait for their original seven-day security period to end before getting their funds back from the smart contract.

This approach offers both trustless security and a fast, convenient user experience.

«There is a front mechanism in BitVM bridge design, the pegout user will get their BTC back at bitcoin block time,» He told CoinDesk. «The waiting time will be left to the broker(operator).»

Expansive ecosystem

Bitlayer is prioritizing integration with the Ethereum mainnet and major layer 2 solutions, as well as exploring Solana and Bitcoin-native layer 2s, such as Lightning Network applications. It has already secured integration with other leading ecosystems, including Sui, Base, Starknet, and Arbitrum, Sonic, Plume Network and Sundial.

«Our goal is to make YBTC universally accessible wherever significant DeFi liquidity exists, enabling bitcoin to flow securely and seamlessly into diverse ecosystems,» BitLayer’s team told CoinDesk.

The team added that it plans to establish a security committee, release audit reports and conduct bug bounties and open-source their code, creating a roadmap that positions BitLayer’s BitVM Bridge as a crucial piece of infrastructure for BTC’s future in DeFi.

Read more: Bitlayer Joins Forces With Antpool, F2Pool, and SpiderPool to Supercharge Bitcoin DeFi

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