Market snapshot · Aug. 12, 2026 close
The American FilingSection
Digital assets, rules and market swings
Stablecoin legislation, federal charters and pending market structure rules have delivered what the industry lobbied a decade for — and replaced the fight over legality with the grind of compliance.
Strategy holds roughly 818,869 bitcoin acquired at an average cost above $75,000, has sold four times this year to meet obligations, and briefly saw its market value fall below its holdings.
Researchers counted 207 incidents in the first half of the year, more than double a year earlier, while total losses fell 57% to about $972 million — with state-linked groups responsible for two-thirds of it.
U.S. funds shed roughly $5.4 billion in the first six months of 2026 after two years in which they absorbed nearly $57 billion, reversing the demand channel that defined the last cycle.
A historic difficulty drop is the protocol working exactly as designed, but the migration of computing power toward AI workloads raises a question about what secures the network long term.
A June rout wiped roughly $62 billion from the combined market value of public companies holding bitcoin, exposing how much of the model depended on shares trading above the value of the coins.
Total supply topped $322 billion in June, with Tether at roughly $187 billion and Circle at about $75 billion — a combined 83% share that makes the market a duopoly with federal charters.
The transfer of 10,422 bitcoin worth roughly $739 million in June revived fears of creditor selling from a bankruptcy that began more than a decade ago.