Corporate Bitcoin Buying Plunges to About 5,900 BTC in Past Three Months, Glassnode Says

Analysts at JPMorgan Chase said Bitcoin could receive stronger price support than gold if hedging activity tied to exchange-traded funds declines. According to the bank, gold ETFs have already recovered the outflows seen since the start of 2026, while Bitcoin ETFs have recouped only about half of their outflows, and demand for Bitcoin ETFs has weakened recently, meaning Bitcoin has more room to recover than gold if conditions improve. Behind this is renewed attention on currency debasement trades after the Federal Reserve's meeting in late July, but that trade has lost momentum over the past week, weighed down by rising real interest rates and the lack of progress in the U.S. Senate on the crypto market structure bill known as the Clarity Act. Short interest in the ETFs differs sharply: short interest in BlackRock's spot Bitcoin ETF, the iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF, is near its highest level of 2026, while short interest in the gold ETF SPDR Gold Shares is below its historical average. For IBIT, the ratio of put option open interest to call option open interest is also higher than for GLD, and JPMorgan analysts concluded that under the current market structure, where IBIT has more short interest than GLD, an unwind of positions could support Bitcoin more than gold if hedging demand declines.

Bitcoin rallied to a two-week high on Friday, climbing back above the psychologically important $80,000 level, with the broader crypto market joining the advance. According to Bitget Wallet research analyst Lacie Zhang, US spot ETF inflows and short covering helped push it through the psychologically important $80,000 level. The surge came despite a Fed rate hike earlier in the week and the failure of the Clarity Act, legislation that would have created a federal framework for the broader digital asset industry; after the measure failed to advance in the Senate, the Securities and Exchange Commission stepped in on Thursday with a conditional exemption allowing the trading of certain tokenized stocks on blockchains for the next five years. While bitcoin led the move, ether, binance and solana have outperformed over the past month, gaining 35%, 25% and 41% respectively, and rotation into alternative tokens and tokenized versions of Nvidia, Tesla and the S&P 500 helped lift the total crypto market capitalization to $2.66 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap. Fundstrat's Sean Farrell said crypto has absorbed a fairly aggressive hawkish repricing without much damage, while Compass Point's Ed Engel last week upgraded Coinbase to Neutral from Sell, citing that BTC is recovering from a cyclical bottom.

Evernorth has secured $30 million in financing through a convertible bond from South Korea's NH Investment & Securities to fund XRP purchases and ecosystem-related activities. According to a Form 8-K filed with the SEC, the company issued $30 million of 4% convertible senior PIK notes maturing in 2031, in an agreement with NH Investment & Securities, which serves as trustee for Kyobo AIM Corporate Finance General Private Investment Trust No. 3. The financing is contingent on the completion of Evernorth's business combination with Armada Acquisition Corp. II, which is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2026, after which the company plans to list on Nasdaq under the ticker symbol XRPN. Evernorth already holds approximately 346.28 million XRP, and the tracked publicly listed companies hold a combined total of about 346.4 million XRP, worth roughly $489 million at current prices. Meanwhile, seven XRP ETFs hold about 1.1286 billion XRP, with weekly net inflows of roughly 6.34 million XRP, or about $8.99 million.