The Weekly Wrap: Clarity Act Vote Delayed, New EIP Sparks Debate & DEX-to-CEX Spot Volume Ratio Climbs

Listen to the Weekly Wrap on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. It is a summary with the help of AI-voices. 

This Week’s Top Stories

"Senate delays Clarity Act vote until after August recess." – Thursday, 6 August 2026 

• Senate Majority Leader Thune confirmed that the Senate is delaying a vote on the Clarity Act until lawmakers return from their August recess. He mentioned that the Democrats are insistent on no Clarity vote but also that they are getting that queued up first thing when we come back in September.
• The delay gives lawmakers several more weeks to try to secure the 60 votes needed to advance the bill. Various involved people mentioned to media that while the delay is disappointing, the direction has not changed, and they are still expecting the bill to pass eventually.

"Warsh considers reducing frequency of Fed policy meetings." – Last week 

• Kevin Warsh is considering reducing the number of regularly scheduled meetings at which the Federal Reserve sets interest rates. Up until now, the FOMC meets eight times a year and votes on the interest rate decision, but at July's meeting the Fed Chair raised this idea of changing the frequency of the FOMC meetings.
• The decision would certainly break a century-old tradition, reshaping the way the Fed steers the economy and potentially making it less responsive to changes in inflation and the labor market.
• It would, however, fit a larger pattern that has emerged early in Mr. Warsh's chairmanship. He has dramatically shortened the policy statements that the Fed releases after each meeting and has provided far less detail about how he views the economy and the appropriate direction for rates.

"The US and Japan jointly conducted Yen intervention last Friday." – Monday, 3 August 2026 

• Last Friday, the US and Japan intervened in the Yen market for the first time since 2011 in a joint action to prevent a selloff in the yen and Japanese government bonds from causing global spillovers, such as adding additional upward pressure on already rising US treasury yields.
• The U.S. Treasury sold euros to buy yen, three sources familiar with the matter said, though the amount spent was not known, and Japan spent as much as $36.6B buying yen during Friday's intervention.

No Clarity Act vote, but crypto held steady this week 

Bitcoin and Ethereum are both up roughly 3% since Monday morning, and the crypto market is slightly positive since Monday as well. Among this week’s outperformers are PUMP, which has been benefiting from growing revenue numbers in recent weeks, as well as ENA, UNI and ADA. ADA is actually up more than 30% since the end of July amid the van Rossem hard fork, which went live in July, and the planned move into the Dijkstra era, which aims to increase scalability. 

PEPE, ETH, LINK and ZEC are also up this week, while CC and HYPE are among the projects that have lost some ground. 

In traditional markets, the S&P 500 reached a new all-time high on Tuesday amid news of a renewed deal between the US and Iran, which also led to a selloff in oil prices. Light crude oil futures slid below $80 again on Tuesday and are currently trading at $78. 

Gold and silver prices also saw significant price action this week, with gold up 6% and silver up almost 10% since Monday. The DXY, the US Dollar Index, on the other hand, remained stable this week, hovering below the 100 level again. 

Strategy’s STRC is currently trading at $94, still below par but up 5% since Monday, amid news that Strategy sold more BTC last week.

For BTC $70K and $60K are relevant levels & ETH eyes $2.5K threshold 

BTC options positioning remains centered on the $60K to $70K range. The $70K strike has become the dominant upside target, while call interest between $75K and $90K suggests expectations for only moderate appreciation. Meanwhile, concentrated put positioning around $55K to $60K reinforces this zone as key structural support. 

ETH options positioning remains centered on the $2.5K strike, reinforcing it as the market’s primary upside target. Call interest is concentrated between $2K and $2.7K, reflecting expectations for measured appreciation rather than a strong breakout. Meanwhile, put positioning remains broadly dispersed across the $1K to $2K range.

New draft EIP, Spot Volume on DEXs on the rise & Prediction markets with record volumes in July 

A group of Ethereum developers proposed a new draft EIP to improve Ethereum’s issuance policy aiming to remove the incenting for stake growth once more than 50% of the ETH supply is staked. The developers behind the EIP argue that the growing staking ratio presents a problem, as the amount of staked ETH reached a new all-time high at 34% of the supply. Currently, the staking yield would never drop below roughly 1.5%, even if all ETH were to be staked. 

They argue that, if nothing changes, the amount of staked ETH will reach 70M by 2028, which would be more than 55%. They mention that the ever growing amount of staked ETH has various implications for the protocol and ETH holders, as it for example could lead to staking supply concentration as solo stakers are forced out due to taxes on nominal yield and dilution. 

Additionally, they argue that the growing issuance is a dilution tax on ETH holders, as it basically leaves holders with the choice of either staking or being diluted. They also state their worry that at high ratios, LSTs and other staking derivatives are displacing raw ETH as the working money of the ecosystem. 

They present their solution, the “Tapered Issuance Burn”, which would gradually burn validator issuance as the staking ratio increases, the plan would fully offset the issuance of new ETH once staking reaches 50% of the ETH supply. 

The new EIP has sparked a new discussion in the ETH community as for example Stani Kulechov, founder of Aave, said that the proposal would hurt the institutional adoption of Ethereum and DeFi use cases.  

In the Hyperliquid world, there was a discussion surrounding TradeXYZ and their alignment with Hyperliquid’s HYPE token, as there were rumors of a funding round circulating on X.  This week, TradeXYZ bought back HYPE with 12% of their collected revenue giving a clear answer to the recent discussions. The team has not officially commented on the topic so far, but most community members see this week’s HYPE TWAP as actions speaking louder than words. 

The discussion comes at a time when Hyperliquid’s monthly trading volume in July hit $218B, exceeding other leading DEXs, such as Aster, Lighter and Variational, combined. The total volume of the top eight Perp DEXs fell by $85B, or 17%, compared with the previous month. While the total volume fell in July compared to June, the DEX-to-CEX spot trade volume increased significantly in July and reached 38% in the first days of August, up from 18% in June. The DEX-to-CEX futures trade volume, however, is rather stagnant at roughly 11%, down from almost 22% back in November, but still up significantly since the beginning of 2025, when it was below 5%. 

In other news, Polymarket and Kalshi reached a new record monthly volume of more than $50B in July as Polymarket US’s volume rose by more than 50% to $5B amid the football world cup which likely led to increased sports betting on the platforms. June and July both saw a significant increase in trading volume, as the volume increased from $25 billion in April, March and May to $50 billion in June and July. Kalshi continues to account for the bulk of the volume, but Polymarket US has been steadily growing, with $700M of volume in March to the mentioned $5B in July.

Net inflow week, Strategy sold BTC & another Polymarket raise incoming? 

While the Bitcoin spot ETFs ended last week with more than $250M in net outflows, this week the products managed to turn things around and have attracted more than $750M in net inflows so far. The Ether spot ETFs are also on track for a net inflow week, with roughly $200M in net inflows so far. Adjusted for market capitalization, Ethereum is currently attracting more money than Bitcoin relative to its size. The Hyperliquid products are also looking back on two consecutive net inflow days after more than two weeks of outflows. Is this the turnaround? 

Strategy announced that it sold 1’638 BTC last week to fund preferred dividends and STRC buybacks. The company also raised $290.6M through MSTR share sales, repurchased $81.2M of STRC and increased its US dollar reserve to $4B. And guess what? Yes, BitMine acquired 10’399 ETH over the past week. BitMine also repurchased 4.5M shares during the week, while its total crypto holdings, cash, marketable securities and other investments stood at $11.3B. 

MARA, the largest publicly traded Bitcoin mining company, reported an almost 30% decline in its BTC holdings compared with the same period last year in its Q2 earnings report. The company now holds roughly 35.5K Bitcoin. 

Last but not least, Polymarket appears to be in preliminary talks with potential investors to raise about $1B at a valuation exceeding $20B. If completed, the deal would more than double its $9B valuation from October 2025.

Crypto in fear, stock market in greed & AAII members are balanced 

Crypto market sentiment has improved slightly but remains in fear territory at 29, while the US stock market is trading at record highs and sentiment has already returned to greed territory at 60. AAII members have also become slightly more optimistic, although 38% remain bearish about the next six months. The share of bullish members increased from 31% to 37% compared with last week.

• Wintermute steps onto regulated wall street with broker license. – Link
• Mother of late Ondo founder seeks control of company and removal of De Bode as CEO. – Link
• Putin signs landmark crypto law allowing regulated retail trading in Russia. – Link

No Clarity Act vote, no Fed meeting, geopolitics, US inflation, Yen developments & Jackson Hole 

The crypto market did not really react to the news that the vote on the CLARITY Act will not take place before the US Senate’s August recess. To be fair, however, it would have been a positive surprise if it had happened and could have provided a catalyst for markets to move higher. Now, there is not really much to look forward to over the coming weeks. The summer break is still ongoing, but many traders and investors will be returning to their desks over the coming weeks. 

While the Fed is not meeting in August and the next FOMC meeting will take place in mid September, markets will likely remain focused on developments in the Middle East, as geopolitical tensions continue to influence markets on a daily basis. On Wednesday, the US will release its inflation data. This will be a key data release for the coming weeks and months, so let’s keep an eye on it next week. 

Additionally, it might be a good idea to keep an eye on Japan, the yen and the possibility of another carry trade unwind. Last but not least, the Jackson Hole Symposium will be held at the end of August, with Kevin Warsh expected to speak. This is another important event to mark in the calendar. 

Below, you can find some of the key data releases and events to watch out for next week. 

Tuesday, 11 August 2026 

USA – Existing Home Sales 

Wednesday, 12 August 2026 

USA – CPI, Core CPI 

Thursday, 13 August 2026 

Great Britain – GDP 

Switzerland – PPI 

USA – Initial Jobless Claims 

USA – PPI, Core PPI 

Friday, 14 August 2026 

Eurozone – GDP 

USA – Retail Sales, Core Retail Sales