đź“Ť If you only catch up on crypto once this week, start here.
Money's playing musical chairs this week, and crypto keeps losing its seat. Prediction markets are booming, Aussie investors are ditching crypto ETFs for semiconductor funds, and the Senate just shelved the CLARITY Act days before recess. Meanwhile, over in Brazil, farmers are literally putting cows on the blockchain to get loans. Let's get into it! 🚀
Nearly every major coin is still down double digits over the past year, Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP and Solana all included, while Hyperliquid quietly sits up 111%.
Cryptocurrency prices by market cap via CoinMarketCap
Prediction markets are booming, crypto markets are not — here's what that means for crypto investors
So what happened? Prediction market volume jumped 48.7% in Q2 to $113.8 billion, while spot trading on the top 10 crypto exchanges fell 27.9% and Ethereum and Bitcoin prices dropped, prompting the obvious question: is money leaving crypto for prediction markets?
Why does it matter? Not quite. Data shows 60% of Polymarket's new users had never touched crypto before, meaning prediction markets are mostly pulling in fresh money, not draining cryptos. The bigger driver is crypto's own bear market, down 52% from October's peak.
The bigger picture If speculative capital does keep drifting away, coins like Solana (built almost entirely on speculative trading) look most exposed, while Hyperliquid, which added its own prediction-style markets in May, is positioned to benefit either way.
🟢 Senate shelves the CLARITY Act before August recess — XRP dropped nearly 8% over the past week as the U.S. Senate shelved the Clarity Act before its August recess, with global markets also bracing for the Fed's July 29 rate decision. Big swing on last week's momentum story. Read more →
🟢 Brazil just approved tokenised cows — Brazil has just registered the first-ever tokenized livestock loan on its stock exchange, B3. A dairy farmer in Paraná used 10 sensor-monitored cows as blockchain-verified collateral to secure a R$100,000 (~$19,600) loan. Read more →
🟢 Crypto hacks hit record high in H1 2026 — losses top $1 billion — Blockaid called H1 2026 the "most-hacked half-year on record," with DPRK hackers responsible for nearly $600 million of the total stolen. Strong two-cohort story: scary headline, real stakes. Read more →
🟢 Circle buys IBM's entire blockchain patent library — Circle acquired over 1,000 blockchain patents IBM built up over a decade, announced July 27. Read more →
🟢 Robinhood prediction markets drive $1.31B quarter — Robinhood Markets reported record second-quarter revenue on July 29, as growth in event contracts, options and equities offset another decline in cryptocurrency trading. Read more →
🟢 Korean investors face stress after AI bubble bursts, and crypto markets are watching closely — South Korea's retail traders swapped memecoins for semiconductor stocks, rode a 180% rally, then watched it collapse by 25% in weeks. Read more →
🟢 Coinbase's Armstrong says AI agents will out-transact humans using crypto — Coinbase chief executive Brian Armstrong said artificial intelligence and crypto are not rival trends. Read more →
🟢 Apple Sued After Alleged Fake Crypto Wallet App Cost Users $1.8 Million — Three investors allege a fake Sparrow Wallet app listed in Apple's App Store caused approximately $1.8 million in Bitcoin losses. Read more →
🟢 Kraken's parent Payward acquires Magic Labs' embedded wallet business — Magic Labs sells its wallet business (60M+ wallets created since 2018) to Kraken parent Payward, rebranding as Newton Labs. Read more →
🟢 Strategy goes five weeks without buying Bitcoin — longest pause in two years — Strategy went a fifth straight week without buying Bitcoin, its longest pause in two years, raising $525 million in cash instead and repurchasing $25 million of its own STRC preferred stock. Read more →
🟢 Investors dump crypto ETFs for semiconductors in FY26 — As eight crypto ETFs racked up losses of more than 39 per cent during FY26, Australian investors piled into high-flying semiconductor funds instead. Read more →
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This week's term: Prediction markets
A prediction market is basically a place to bet on real-world outcomes: will a certain team win, will a law pass, will inflation come in above or below a number, instead of betting on a coin's price. You're trading "will this happen or not" instead of "will this go up or down." Platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket run on this idea, and they're currently red-hot, pulling in way more new money than crypto trading is right now.
Episode 242 - Bitcoin, Bali & Bad Decisions
TIMESTAMPS:
1:58 Bali, beach club and a drained crypto wallet!
5:20 BitMEX closes its doors
10:20 North Korea plot twist
12:30 Short, sharp news bites
Bitcoin Could Hit $380K-$450K by March 2028, Says Analyst
Critics have challenged the forecast, arguing that BTC's historical tops have consistently arrived after, not before, halvings.
If this week proved anything, it's that speculative money never really disappears; it just goes looking for a new playground. Prediction markets, chip stocks, whatever's hot — crypto's competing with all of it for attention right now. The Fed just held rates steady, so no big surprise there, but three officials wanted a hike, which tells you the inflation debate isn't settled. Is crypto due for a comeback, or has the itch moved on for good?
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