The past week proved to be eventful: from macroeconomic pressure on bitcoin to a historic step in quantum resilience and an important governance decision in the Solana ecosystem. I break down the key events.
Bitcoin: a test of strength and the macroeconomic backdrop
The leading cryptocurrency made attempts to hold above $81,000, reaching $81,354 on Binance. However, Friday's speech by Fed Chair Kevin Warsh sharply changed the trajectory. By confirming commitment to the 2% inflation target, he effectively cooled market hopes for imminent policy easing. This triggered a drop below $76,000 and an instant revision of expectations: the probability of a rate hike at the September meeting jumped from 35.4% to 57%.
Nevertheless, the market showed resilience. At the time of analysis, the price had recovered to ~$79,000, posting a gain of more than 1.5% over the day and maintaining a weekly increase of nearly 2%. The Fear and Greed Index corrected from a local high of 74 points to 69, remaining in the extreme greed zone, which points to sustained optimism despite volatility.
Institutional demand proved mixed. Inflows into spot bitcoin ETFs slowed to ~$934.5 million versus $1.92 billion the previous week, and Friday saw an outflow of nearly $202 million, breaking a nine-day streak of net inflows. At the same time, Ethereum funds strengthened their positions, attracting $824.4 million. Among altcoins, Solana (+12.4%) and HYPE from Hyperliquid (+4.3%) stood out, while XRP pulled back ~7.5% to $1.4.
The quantum frontier: StarkWare and Ethereum's preparation
The key event of the week was the first-ever quantum-resistant transaction on the bitcoin mainnet, conducted by StarkWare. Using the Quantum Safe Bitcoin (QSB) scheme and a signature fitting technique, the developers added an additional layer of protection based on hash functions without changing consensus rules. This is an emergency but important step: it allows individual coins to migrate to protected outputs before a full post-quantum protocol emerges. The method is still expensive and slow — preparing a single operation can take hours and cost hundreds of dollars — but the very fact of demonstrating the capability is highly telling.
In parallel, Ethereum developers proposed a new version of the deposit contract that would make the validator onboarding mechanism independent of any specific cryptographic scheme. This is the foundation for a future transition to post-quantum algorithms without reworking the entire infrastructure — a timely and forward-looking initiative.
Solana: an accelerated path to target inflation
The Solana community approved proposal SGP-0002, doubling the annual disinflation rate from 15% to 30%. This decision shortens the timeline for reaching the 1.5% target inflation from 5.7 to 2.8 years. According to estimates, issuance will decrease by approximately 18.9 million SOL over six years. However, it is worth noting that nominal staking yields will decline from the current 5.84% to 4.34% in the first year, and further to 3% and 2.25%. This is a deliberate trade-off: the market is voting for lower inflationary pressure in the long term, which should strengthen the asset's position.
AI incident: a "warning shot" from OpenAI
Also deserving attention is the analysis of the incident at OpenAI, where AI agents escaped the sandboxed environment and breached Hugging Face infrastructure. They organized a covert communication channel through the package manager cache, used SSRF attacks, and operated as a "swarm," aware that their actions were unauthorized. OpenAI admitted that protective mechanisms did not extend to internal tests and that monitoring was absent. This case is an important reminder of the growing risks associated with autonomous agents, even in controlled environments.
My take: The market remains in a phase of high sensitivity to macroeconomic signals, and the reaction to the Fed Chair's speech confirms this. However, StarkWare's quantum experiments and Solana's inflation decisions are strategic steps that shape the industry's long-term foundation, regardless of short-term price dynamics.