In partnership with
[ 🛢️ WEEKLY SIGNAL ]
Hey {{first_name}} 👋
This week, legislative odds hit a wall, Bitcoin's controversial BIP-110 soft fork collapsed in two blocks, the Ethereum Foundation abandoned Poseidon after an eight-year research effort, and Solana narrowly dodged a network finality halt.
Too much news? The Slow Stack slows down the feed, checks the numbers, and gives you pure signal, no spin, no 20-page fluff dumps
Right. Onto the cipher.
[ 🏛️ POLICY & REGULATION ]
CLARITY Act passage odds cut to 10% as SEC exemptions stall
📖 Short Story:
Galaxy Digital’s Alex Thorn slashed 2026 passage odds for the CLARITY Act from 50% to just 10% after lawmakers missed the August recess window.
Meanwhile, SEC exemptions for primary issuance and secondary DeFi trading face continued delays, while total Coldcard exploit losses surpassed $112 million.
🔍 Deep Dive:
The Legislative Squeeze: As detailed in the PrimeXBT Analysis on Galaxy CLARITY Act Odds, the Senate reconvenes September 14 and adjourns around October 2 for midterms, leaving a tight 2–3 week calendar window. Three primary blockers remain: unresolved ethics controls for government officials' token involvement, community banking lobbying over stablecoin yield provisions, and illicit finance concerns surrounding developer protections.
SEC Clock Ticking: SEC "Reg Crypto" and "Innovation Exemption" rules stall amid traditional securities pushback, with Commissioner Hester Peirce’s planned November departure compressing the timeframe for the Commission to act before losing a crypto-friendly voting bloc.
Exploit Damage Tally: Galaxy estimates total Coldcard firmware RNG exploit losses exceed $112M. While no new victim attacks have been verified post-August 6, unmigrated seeds remain permanently vulnerable.
🛠️ YOUR ACTION PLAYBOOK (MACRO & EQUITIES)
Prepare for September Volatility: Expect policy headlines to spike during the brief Sept 14–Oct 2 Senate window before midterms freeze legislative progress until 2027.
Re-Key Vulnerable Coldcard Seeds: If you generated a single-sig seed on affected Coldcard hardware between 2021 and 2026, sweep your funds to a freshly generated seed immediately.
Elon's Launching His Own "iPhone." 3 Stocks to Buy to Prepare
If you'd bought Apple before the first iPhone, you'd have seen peak gains of 7,537%. One product turned ordinary investors into millionaires.
Now Elon Musk is launching his own version — a device he claims will be "10x bigger than the largest product in history."
Target launch: July 22. Just days away.
The people who win on launches like this don't buy after the headlines. They position before. Our analyst pinpointed 3 stocks set to ride the launch — with entry guidance and price targets, plus a bonus 4th pick (the most undervalued name in the supply chain) and a 3-phase playbook showing exactly when to buy, when to add, and when to take profits.
100% free. No credit card. Over 2,500 investors have already read it.
/[ ₿ BITCOIN & GOVERNANCE ]
₿ BIP-110 soft fork dies in two blocks as Ocean pool hashrate collapses 96%
📖 Short Story:
BIP-110—a controversial soft fork co-authored by Luke Dashjr targeting Ordinals, BRC-20s, and Runes—collapsed after securing only 2.53% miner signaling.
A Stratum configuration error at Ocean pool misrouted miners onto the minority chain, triggering a 96% hashrate exodus and the removal of Dashjr as a BIP editor.
🔍 Deep Dive:
Consensus Rejection: As reported in the HTX Analysis on BIP-110 Scaling War, BIP-110 lowered its activation threshold to 55%, but the minority chain stalled just two blocks after splitting at height 961,632, falling 240+ blocks behind mainnet.
Operational Fallout: Ocean pool mistakenly misdirected user hashrate to the minority chain for ~18 hours without consent, resulting in 0.3 BTC in direct user rebates and an immediate 96% hashrate exodus.
Governance Discipline: BIP editors removed Dashjr from his editorial role within 48 hours, citing conflicts of interest and procedural bypasses. Proponents are now pivoting toward a breakaway Proof-of-Work algorithm change.
🛠️ YOUR ACTION PLAYBOOK (REGULATORY)
Recognize Consensus Realities: Soft forks require broad miner and economic consensus; minority chain splits without miner backing freeze rapidly.
Verify Mining Pool Settings: If mining via Ocean or third-party pools, ensure stratum templates explicitly align with mainnet Core consensus rules.
[ ⚙️ INFRASTRUCTURE & CRYPTOGRAPHY ]
Ethereum drops Poseidon for SHA2/BLAKE2s as Solana dodges finality halt
📖 Short Story:
The Ethereum Foundation is abandoning Poseidon after an 8-year, 8-figure research investment, pivoting L1 SNARK proving to SHA-2 and BLAKE2s.
Meanwhile, Solana came within 4.5 percentage points of a full finality halt on August 12 due to a Teraswitch BGP routing failure
🔍 Deep Dive:
Ethereum Cryptography Pivot: According to KuCoin Coverage on Ethereum Poseidon Replacement, EF researcher Justin Drake confirmed L1 SNARK proving will shift to traditional binary field-based SNARKs, cutting SNARK overhead for SHA-2 to 100x vs. native CPU and enabling 1 million proofs/sec on a laptop. Target roadmap: leanVM in 2027, full deployment by 2028.
Solana Concentration Risk: A corrupted BGP default route at Teraswitch’s Miami site disconnected AS20326—an autonomous system holding 118.89M SOL (>25% of network stake). 28.83% of total stake went delinquent, nearing the 33.34% finality halt threshold before engineers restored routing in under 10 minutes.
EVM Gas Accounting (EIP-7999): Ethereum researchers outlined four candidate architectures for multidimensional gas accounting (Aggregate EVM Gas, Multidimensional Subfee Market, Universal Overflow, Updated EVM) to price compute, state bytes, and data bytes as distinct resources.
🛠️ YOUR ACTION PLAYBOOK (CRYPTO POSITIONING)
Audit Validator Hosting Diversity: If running or delegating Solana stake, rebalance away from single ASNs (like Teraswitch) to prevent single-provider routing failures from halting your rewards.
Prepare ZK Stack Roadmaps: ZK-rollup and zkVM developers currently using Poseidon should prepare migration paths toward binary field SHA-2 / BLAKE2s proving pipelines
[ 💵 DEFI, STABLECOINS & TREASURIES ]
Bitwise accumulates $5M+ HYPE as card rails modernize and early buybacks face scrutiny
📖 Short Story:
Bitwise's NYSE-listed Hyperliquid ETF (BHYP) bought over $5M in HYPE last week despite a 14% 30-day price dip.
Concurrently, Visa card settlement via USDC continues replacing multi-day ACH cycles, while early-stage crypto buybacks face economic criticism.
🔍 Deep Dive:
Bitwise HYPE Accumulation: As outlined in the Phemex Report on Bitwise BHYP ETF Launch, Bitwise ETF wallets purchased $5M+ in HYPE last week and haven't sold a single token since July. Hyperliquid's protocol routes 97%+ of fees (~$1B annualized) into token buybacks.
Stablecoin Card Settlement: Rain and Visa are bypassing 1987-era ISO 8583 card settlement delays by using 365-day USDC clearing, eliminating multi-day prefunding requirements for global card programs.
The Buyback Dilemma: Early-stage protocols returning 50%–97% of revenues via buybacks (Hyperliquid, Pump) signal either a lack of high-return reinvestment opportunities or highly contestable fee pools needing token bribes.
Avici EURC On-Ramp: Avici launched SEPA deposits converting EUR to EURC for a €1 fee, though card spending settles in USD via Visa conversion.
🛠️ YOUR ACTION PLAYBOOK (CRYPTO POSITIONING)
Evaluate Buyback vs. Growth: Distinguish between mature cash-flow machines and early-stage projects using fee buybacks to mask weak retention moats.
Track Onchain ETF Flows: Monitor Arkham entity labels for Bitwise (BHYP) to gauge institutional accumulation trends before official quarterly filings land.
[ 🗓️ 7-DAY ACTION CHECKLIST ]
🗓️ Your Game Plan for the Week Ahead
🗓️ Your Game Plan for the Week Ahead
Priority | Target Area | Action Item | Deadline |
Urgent | Coldcard Security | Audit single-sig seeds created 2021–2026; re-key funds | Immediate |
High | Solana Staking | Diversify validator hosting away from AS20326 (Teraswitch) | This Week |
Medium | ZK Protocols | Review binary-field SHA2 roadmap for zkVM/ZK-rollup stacks | Q3 2026 |
Watch | Macro Policy | Track Senate floor schedule ahead of Sept 14 reconvene | Sept 14 |