The crypto market is holding its breath: digest of the main events on August 11
Key overnight events: tech giant Anthropic strikes a historic deal with Bitcoin miner Riot, Arthur Hayes sees a bullish scenario for BTC through a Fed mechanism, and BlackRock radically lowers the entry threshold for its Bitcoin ETF.
Market in a sideways trend: Bitcoin holds $64,000
The overnight session brought no surprises for leading crypto assets. Bitcoin (BTC) was trading around $63,980 as of 08:40 Moscow time. The 15-minute chart showed consolidation: prices dipped to $63,800, then rose to $64,100, but ultimately settled near the $64,000 mark.
Ether (ETH) showed similar dynamics, holding in a narrow range of $1868–$1880, with most trading near $1874. Altcoins in the top 10 showed minimal volatility: Hyperliquid (HYPE) led gains with a 2.12% increase, Solana (SOL) rose 1.04%, and BNB corrected by 0.52%.
Among the top 100 assets, Curve DAO Token (CRV) stood out, gaining 10.8%. Internet Computer (ICP) and Lighter (LIT) also showed solid performance, adding 7.84% and 6.62%, respectively. The day's laggard was the Audiera (BEAT) token, which plunged 51.2%.
ETF flows and liquidations
Spot exchange-traded funds showed mixed dynamics. Bitcoin ETFs lost $144.67 million over the day, while Ethereum products lost $14.59 million. At the same time, Solana funds attracted $8.83 million and HYPE funds $2.74 million, indicating sustained interest in alternative digital assets.
Over the past 24 hours, positions totaling $201.08 million were liquidated across 68,722 traders. The largest single liquidation order was on Hyperliquid — a BRENTOIL oil contract worth $10.55 million.
Anthropic and Riot: the alliance of the century
Anthropic, the developer of the AI model Claude, has signed a 20-year deal with Bitcoin miner Riot Platforms worth $9.1 billion. Under the agreement, Anthropic will receive 191 MW of computing capacity at Riot's Rockdale, Texas facility. Full deployment of the capacity is scheduled for June 2028. Two five-year extension options could increase the total contract value to $16.1 billion.
This deal is a clear signal that AI developers are desperately competing for infrastructure to meet growing demand, and miners are becoming key players in this race.
Hayes on the yen rescue and BlackRock lowers the threshold
BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes has outlined a scenario for yen strengthening that could prove bullish for the crypto market. In his view, Japan will not raise rates or sell off U.S. Treasury bonds. Instead, it could use the Fed's FIMA repo facility, pledging its U.S. Treasuries in exchange for dollars, then selling them to buy yen. If the $60 billion counterparty limit is raised, the Fed's balance sheet would expand, and the resulting dollar liquidity would become a positive factor for Bitcoin, gold, and Ethereum.
Meanwhile, BlackRock announced it is lowering the minimum threshold for in-kind transactions in its Bitcoin ETF from $25 million to $1 million. Now, an investor with $1 million in Bitcoin can exchange it for shares of the IBIT fund through authorized participants. Robert Mitchnick also discussed the new BITA fund, targeting returns of 15–19% with limited volatility and lower upside potential for Bitcoin.
My take: Lowering the entry threshold for IBIT is a powerful step toward democratizing access to institutional Bitcoin. Combined with growing interest in AI infrastructure and potential easing of dollar liquidity, the market is receiving several bullish drivers at once. However, the current sideways movement suggests participants are waiting for a clearer signal before taking a directional bet.