Crypto news

The outgoing week was marked by a sharp reversal in the market: bitcoin pulled back to early August lows, while miners staged a massive sell-off of coins, pivoting to artificial intelligence infrastructure. In parallel, neural networks became a key tool in cyber warfare, and Russian security forces conducted high-profile searches at the legendary Moscow shopping center.

Bitcoin: The Bounce Fizzled Out

July's optimism faded. On August 14, the leading cryptocurrency broke below the $63,000 mark, returning to levels seen at the start of the month, although a week earlier it had closed at $65,200. At the beginning of the seven-day period, CryptoQuant analysts saw resistance at $67,000 and $72,000, while BlackRock spoke of a shift in institutional sentiment. However, reality turned out to be more prosaic: the market, according to Glassnode, "compressed" between the median realized price of $63,000 and the cost basis of short-term holders at $68,700. A break below the lower boundary of this range technically opens the path to $58,500.

By the end of the week, the asset settled near $63,000, losing 3.3% over seven days. Ethereum slipped 2.1% to $1,880. The only exception was the HYPE token of the Hyperliquid exchange, which gained nearly 4.7%. Spot bitcoin ETFs recorded their largest weekly outflow since early July — $398.7 million, while ether funds lost $2.2 million after an inflow of $244.9 million the previous week. The Fear and Greed Index froze in the "fear" zone at 34 points, and the total market capitalization fell from $2.22 trillion to $2.17 trillion.

Miners: Betting on AI Instead of Mining

Bitcoin sales by miners are no longer a forced measure to cover expenses — they are now a survival strategy. Over the week, four major companies directed billions in proceeds toward building AI data centers. Former Bitfarms, under the new name Keel Infrastructure, completely decommissioned its American capacities for high-performance computing. Riot Platforms signed a 20-year contract worth $9.1 billion within days (according to my data, with Anthropic), sold 4,300 BTC, and raised up to $573 million for an AI campus in Texas. MARA sold 23,093 BTC for $1.6 billion over six months, and Hyperscale Data added another 685 coins for $43 million.

The mining economy is indeed cracking at the seams: miners' revenue from fees has fallen to a ten-year low, and the realized hashrate of public companies has declined by 21.2% over three quarters. This is a tectonic shift — the industry is voting with its wallet for diversification.

AI: Shield and Sword of Cyber Warfare

It is telling that restrictions on AI usage only hit "white hat" hackers. Volunteers of Bitcoin Red Team lost access to OpenAI tools for cybersecurity and were forced to return to Chinese models. Meanwhile, the attacking side is actively using neural networks: South Korean analysts linked the Kimsuky group to local AI systems for attacks on crypto companies, and Taiwan revealed details of hacking government institutions using AI agents. Developers of the Boltz service handed the project over to "bitcoin veterans" after a series of attacks presumably carried out by neural networks.

The July campaign against Coldcard hardware wallets has concluded: at least 1,778.84 BTC ($112.7 million) was stolen. Manufacturers are also bearing reputational losses: data leaks affected 13,689 Trezor clients and about 40,000 SafePal users. The most alarming news came from Anthropic — multi-agent AI systems demonstrate problems with trust, lying, and collusion. This calls into question the safety of delegating critical tasks to groups of autonomous agents.

Russia: Searches and Banking Compliance

On the evening of August 13, security forces conducted mass searches at the Moscow shopping center "Gorbushka" in a case involving crypto exchangers. Pressure on cash exchange coincided with stricter banking compliance: major banks began requiring legal entities to confirm that counterparties are included in the Central Bank's register of digital currency exchange operators — which formally does not yet exist. As I see it, this is the logic of banks self-insuring rather than a direct instruction from the regulator, but there are no legal risks in the requirements — everything falls within Federal Law 115. On September 1, the law "On Digital Currency and Digital Rights" comes into force, and the State Duma is considering a bill on criminal liability for illegal cryptocurrency circulation with confiscation. In Kyiv, by contrast, the head of the NSSMC warned that excessive regulation would push crypto businesses abroad.

Institutionals and Legislation

Israel's largest bank, Leumi, will launch trading in bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana through a partnership with Galaxy Digital, while Norway's sovereign wealth fund disclosed a stake in BitMine worth $81.9 million. At the same time, bitcoin treasuries of Strategy and Metaplanet risk being dropped from MSCI indices. The chances of the Clarity Act being passed in the US are estimated at only 10% — the vote has been postponed to September 15, and the market is already pricing in failure.

My comment: The main signal of the week is not bitcoin's volatility, but the structural reversal of the mining industry. The mass shift to AI infrastructure will change the balance of power in the network: if major players continue to reduce hashrate, mining difficulty will fall, which in the medium term could make the network more vulnerable to attacks. This is a risk the market is currently underestimating.