Trump Blocked the CBDC Ban. The Clarity Act Is Hanging by a Thread. And Bitcoin Sat Still While the Stock Market Partied.
STRC hit an all-time low of $71. SATA fell too. Bitcoin ignored the best stock market quarter since 2020. And the Clarity Act's July deadline just passed without a vote.
The President Who Promised to Sign Everything Just Blocked the CBDC Ban
Cast your mind back to last week. The CBDC ban had passed the Senate 85 votes to 5, tucked inside a bipartisan housing bill. It was heading to the President’s desk. We called it practically unstoppable. Then Trump announced he will not sign the housing bill until Congress first passes his SAVE America Act — separate legislation focused on requiring ID for voting.
The SAVE America Act is, in isolation, a perfectly reasonable debate to have. Requiring ID to vote is standard practice in most democracies and a legitimate position to hold. But using it as a lever to block crypto-friendly legislation that had already passed with overwhelming bipartisan support is a different matter entirely. The CBDC ban had nothing to do with voter ID. The housing bill had nothing to do with voter ID. Trump has essentially picked up the digital dollar ban and announced he’s holding it hostage until he gets what he wants on a completely unrelated issue.
The crypto industry — which has invested enormous political capital in Trump over the past two years, including over $135 million in donations during the 2024 election cycle — is watching the President they backed use their legislative wins as bargaining chips in unrelated political fights. For now, frustration is being expressed quietly. But if the Clarity Act goes down as collateral damage, it will not remain quiet.
The Clarity Act: The Window Is Closing
Regular readers will remember our piece on the missing diary entry — the Clarity Act waiting on Tim Scott to schedule a Senate Banking Committee markup. That piece turned out to be more prophetic than we intended. The bill made it out of committee, but it never found its momentum, and now it is in genuine danger.
The July 4 deadline that had been widely cited as the target for Senate passage has come and gone. The Senate is heading into recess. When lawmakers return on July 13, they will have a narrow window of perhaps two to three weeks before the August break consumes the calendar. Three disputes remain unresolved: government ethics provisions — including whether officials can hold crypto assets while writing the laws that govern them — law enforcement access concerns, and market structure rules. Galaxy Research has downgraded the odds of passage in 2026 to 50/50, and those odds feel generous given the current state of play.
The Trump CBDC situation makes everything harder in a specific way. Senate Democrats who voted 85-5 for the housing bill are not feeling cooperative right now. Political goodwill is a finite resource, and the President just spent some of the Clarity Act’s share on an unrelated standoff. If this bill dies in August, the realistic next window — given midterm dynamics, a potential change in House majority, and Senator Lummis leaving in January 2027 — may genuinely be years away.
Why Bitcoin Sat at $60,000 While Everything Else Surged
The US and Iran formally de-escalated this week. Oil prices fell sharply. The Nasdaq surged and the S&P 500 closed out its best quarter since 2020. Global risk appetite returned in a way that, in almost any previous cycle, would have pulled Bitcoin higher with it. Instead, Bitcoin sat stubbornly around $60,000 and barely moved.
The reason is a supply overhang of historic proportions. In June alone, Bitcoin ETFs sold 71,600 BTC while corporate treasuries absorbed just 7,500. Add in newly mined coins and the market is facing a net surplus of roughly 77,000 Bitcoin that buyers are simply not absorbing at current prices — a $4.4 billion imbalance.
June has now officially become the worst month on record for US spot Bitcoin ETFs, with over $4 billion in net outflows, eclipsing the previous record set in February 2025. When supply exceeds demand by that margin, positive macro news does not lift the price. It just slows the fall.
The AI rotation we identified two weeks ago — institutional investors selling liquid assets including Bitcoin ETFs to fund positions in the SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic listings — remains the primary driver. The mega-IPO pipeline is gradually clearing, but June’s outflow record suggests the rotation has not finished. Until ETF inflows return to absorb the excess supply, Bitcoin is effectively decoupled from the broader equity market rally, regardless of how good the macro news gets.
STRC and SATA: Now a Market Problem, Not Just a Strategy Problem
Two weeks ago we wrote that the STRC collapse was a Strategy-specific problem, and that SATA — Strive’s almost identical product — was sitting calmly at $100 as evidence. That picture has changed, and it is worth an honest update.
STRC hit an all-time low of $71.25 on June 26 before recovering slightly to around $74–76 as of June 29–30 — still roughly 25% below its $100 par value. Strategy has maintained its dividend rate at 11.50% for five consecutive months despite the stock trading well below par, which the market is increasingly reading as a signal that management is reluctant to acknowledge the problem formally. Analysts now expect Strategy to raise the rate to 12% or 12.50% at the next reset in order to attract buyers back toward par.
SATA, meanwhile, has also fallen from its $100 par value and is currently trading around $84–85. That is an important development. Last time we wrote, SATA being at par while STRC was at $82 made the story clearly about Strategy’s specific financial decisions. Now that both products are trading well below par, it is harder to sustain that argument. The common factor is Bitcoin’s price. Both products’ capital bases are ultimately tied to Bitcoin treasury strategies, and with Bitcoin down roughly 50% from its October all-time high, the market is repricing the risk across the entire category. SATA is still in better structural shape than STRC — its 18-month cash reserve and debt-free structure remain genuine advantages — but it is no longer immune.
Strategy has responded to the pressure with a new capital management framework: a $2.55 billion US dollar reserve ring-fenced for preferred dividend payments, plus authorisation to sell up to $1.25 billion of Bitcoin if needed. Analysts have broadly welcomed the transparency, even if the prospect of Strategy selling Bitcoin adds to the supply overhang. A company with a clear plan is less dangerous than one that appears to be improvising.
MiCA Lands. 83% of European Crypto Firms Aren’t Ready.
July 1 marked the full enforcement date for MiCA — the EU’s comprehensive crypto regulatory framework. For UK readers this matters both as a signal of where UK regulation is heading and because several platforms you may use operate across European markets.
The numbers are sobering: out of over 1,200 registered crypto entities in Europe, only around 210 have achieved full MiCA authorisation. The remaining 83% face service suspensions. Binance has already suspended new registrations and restricted services in France, Italy, and Spain after failing to secure its licence.
The short-term disruption is real, but the longer-term picture is more interesting. MiCA creates the world’s first unified crypto regulatory framework across 27 countries. Compliant firms now have passport access to the entire EU single market. The 17% who passed the test are in an extraordinarily strong competitive position. The 83% who did not have a compliance problem, not a business problem — which is a very different and more fixable situation. For UK firms, the FCA is watching closely. The UK’s own framework is expected in 2027, and the European failure rate is a warning shot for anyone moving slowly.
And Finally…
CZ Wants to Make America the Capital of Crypto. His Exchange Just Got Kicked Out of Europe.
Changpeng “CZ” Zhao — founder of Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange — gave an interview this week declaring his personal mission to make the United States the “capital of crypto.” On the same day, Binance was suspending services across France, Italy, and Spain after failing to secure its MiCA licence, effectively being shown the door by 27 European countries simultaneously. The dual headlines ran side by side across crypto news sites. Social media was not subtle about the irony.
CZ attributed the 2026 crypto bear market to artificial intelligence pulling in investment capital, global geopolitical tension, and the Bitcoin halving cycle — which are all genuinely reasonable factors. What he did not mention was the world’s largest crypto exchange failing a regulatory compliance test in the world’s largest trading bloc in the same week. America as the capital of crypto is a fine ambition. Getting a licence in Europe might be a useful warm-up act.
The Clarity Act returns from recess on July 13 with a two-to-three week window before August. That is the next critical date for the most important piece of crypto legislation in US history. I’ll cover it as it develops. Make sure you’re subscribed.