Crypto news

The outgoing week was marked by a radical shift in the strategy of public miners, a new round of cyber warfare using artificial intelligence, and increased regulatory pressure on the crypto market in Russia. I will break down the key events that defined the agenda.

Bitcoin Pulled Back to August Lows

The upward momentum of July was completely nullified. On August 14, the leading cryptocurrency broke below the $63,000 mark, returning to levels from the beginning of the month, although the asset had closed the previous week at $65,200. At the start of the week, CryptoQuant analysts, on the contrary, pointed to resistance levels in the $67,000 and $72,000 zones, calculated based on the realized price of short-term holders, while BlackRock stated that investor sentiment had turned.

However, Glassnode specialists described the market as "compressed": the price was stuck 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, according to their forecasts, opened the path to $58,500, which ultimately came to pass. Over seven days, bitcoin lost 3.3%, settling near the $63,000 mark. Ether fell 2.1% to $1,880, and among the top cryptocurrencies by market cap, only Hyperliquid's HYPE token was in positive territory, gaining nearly 4.7%.

Institutional demand also weakened: spot bitcoin ETFs recorded their largest weekly outflow since early July at $398.7 million. The Fear and Greed Index remained in the "fear" zone at 34 points, and the total market capitalization declined from $2.22 trillion to $2.17 trillion.

Miners Fund the AI Race by Selling BTC

Selling mined coins is no longer a survival measure. This week, four major companies directed the proceeds not toward operating expenses, but toward building infrastructure for artificial intelligence. Former Bitfarms, now Keel Infrastructure, fully decommissioned its mining capacity in the US, preparing sites for data centers handling AI workloads.

Riot Platforms went through the entire cycle in a few days: signed a 20-year capacity lease contract with a leading AI lab worth $9.1 billion, sold 4,300 BTC, and raised up to $573 million to build an AI campus in Texas. MARA sold 23,093 BTC from January to June for approximately $1.6 billion, while Hyperscale Data sold 685 BTC for $43 million to fund its own data center.

The economics of mining are indeed pushing toward such a pivot: miners' revenue from fees has fallen to a ten-year low, and the realized hashrate of public companies has dropped by 21.2% over three quarters. This is not a temporary measure, but a fundamental transformation of the industry that will determine the supply-demand balance in the market for years to come.

AI as a Tool for Cyberattacks

Neural networks work equally for both sides of the cyber confrontation. Defenders have faced limitations: AnchorWatch CEO Rob Hamilton lost access to OpenAI under a cybersecurity program, forcing the Bitcoin Red Team to return to Chinese models. Attackers, on the other hand, are actively using AI: South Korean analysts linked the Kimsuky group to the use of local AI systems against crypto companies, while Taiwan revealed details of a hack on government institutions using AI agents.

The founders of the non-custodial service Boltz handed the project over to a group of "bitcoin veterans" after a series of attacks allegedly carried out using neural networks. The July campaign against Coldcard hardware wallets has concluded: according to Galaxy Research estimates, at least 1,778.84 BTC ($112.7 million) were stolen from vulnerable devices. Manufacturers also suffered reputational losses: Trezor reported a data leak affecting 13,689 users, and SafePal — around 40,000.

Regulatory Pressure in Russia

On the evening of August 13, mass searches took place at the Gorbushka shopping center in Moscow in connection with a case involving crypto exchangers. This coincided with stricter banking compliance: major banks began requesting explanations from legal entities regarding USDT transactions, demanding confirmation that the counterparty is included in the Central Bank's registry of digital currency exchange operators, which does not yet exist. Crypto expert Viktor Pershikov links the inspections to the logic of banks' self-insurance and an initiative by Rosfinmonitoring.

The uncertainty will not last long: the law "On Digital Currency and Digital Rights" comes into force on September 1, and the State Duma is considering a bill on criminal liability for illegal cryptocurrency circulation. Institutional adoption, meanwhile, continues: Israel's largest bank, 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.

My view: The mass exodus of miners into AI is not just diversification, but an acknowledgment that the profitability of traditional mining no longer justifies capital expenditures. For the market, this means a reduction in the inflow of new coins and a potential supply deficit in the medium term, which could become a bullish factor for bitcoin.