Digital Asset News covers the Clarity Act's Senate timeline, Bitcoin mining difficulty relief, and crypto security warnings
A solo presenter episode from the Digital Asset News channel covering crypto legislation, Bitcoin mining trends, and wallet security.
Summary
The host covers three main topics: the Clarity Act's uncertain path through the Senate before the August recess, a Bitcoin mining difficulty adjustment providing relief to miners, and a public service announcement about crypto theft via fake wallet apps. On the Clarity Act, the host draws on reporting by Anne Kelly and comments from Senate Majority Leader John Thune to argue that the bill faces severe procedural and political headwinds, with the Save America Act and other priorities competing for limited Senate floor time. The host notes that even if the Clarity Act were brought to the floor immediately, the procedural steps alone make passage before recess extremely difficult. On mining, the host explains that a projected 16% difficulty drop benefits remaining miners by reducing electricity costs, partly because major mining operations have pivoted capacity toward AI and high-performance computing. The episode closes with a warning about a lawsuit alleging Apple kept a fraudulent Bitcoin wallet app on the App Store after a theft was reported, resulting in combined losses of $1.84 million across three plaintiffs.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Strategy Share Repurchase and Bitcoin Purchases
Host: It looks like there is a small glimmer of hope for the Clarity Act. We'll see where things are going, but as far as next week, that's pretty much it. Also, it looks like Bitcoin miners are doing a little relief rally, and we'll talk about that in a second.
But first — Michael Saylor, Strategy — congratulations. They bought some more Bitcoin. Just kidding. They didn't. They repurchased shares of STRK, which is what they are supposed to do and what they should be doing. Unfortunately, Strategy has laid off on the Bitcoin purchases, which is a bummer, but they have to protect their downside. They just repurchased 28,000 shares of STRK for $25 million at an average price of $86 per share. That is good for the company. But for me, it doesn't do me absolutely any good. I hope that Strategy gets back to buying Bitcoin and stops selling at the absolute bottom.
The Clarity Act — Senate Floor Time and the August Recess
Host: Anyhow, the Clarity Act. I've been vocally bearish on this act actually passing, but maybe I'm wrong. Maybe things are going to actually work out. This would go against pretty much everything I've talked about. But there is a positive silver lining.
Millanar Tourett says, "A must-read on the Senate math behind the Clarity Act without all the hype." We'll take a look at what Anne Kelly wrote. She says, "I reported this morning that Senate leadership has discussed potentially keeping members in Washington beyond the scheduled recess" — which I believe is August 7th — "in case President Trump invokes his ability to say, 'No recess. You're going to stay here.'"
Now, this is not a political channel. This is mostly all digital assets and cryptocurrencies. But unfortunately, we can't get away from the politics going on inside Washington.
To talk to what Tourett is referencing, this is from Anne Kelly. It's a very well-written article — I've linked it in the description. She addresses the realities of Clarity Act expectations and Senate rules and math.
Senate floor time — when senators stand up and say, "Look, this is why I believe this should move forward. Here is the data. Here is the math. Here is what my constituents want to see happen" — that takes a lot of time. And unfortunately, the Clarity Act is not the only bill they are trying to pass right now. We are getting into crunch time. If it doesn't happen by next week, it's very difficult.
The Senate is scheduled to leave August 7th. You generally cannot advance other contested legislation at the exact same time — everything has to go through the floor. That means hard choices on priorities have to be set for the larger agenda. Thankfully, they've actually set that agenda to include the Clarity Act, which is pretty good. Hopefully it actually goes through.
But even if the Clarity Act were brought up today, the procedural steps — cloture, the amendment process, a second cloture vote, up to 30 hours of debate — make finishing before recess extremely difficult without a unanimous consent agreement to waive the process, which is rare on contested bills. And if Elizabeth Warren has anything to say about it, that is not going to happen.
Kelly also says, "The Senate staff continue building toward consensus. We can still set up quicker movement in September. Every step is progress." I'm not holding my breath, but maybe it actually works out.
What's Taking Precedent — The Save America Act
Host: What is actually taking precedent? We do have the Clarity Act, but unfortunately, as I talked about, we've got other bills coming forth. The US Senate has put off the crypto Clarity Act for now as far as this week, with a potential vote going on Monday, as it focuses its limited bandwidth elsewhere.
To really sum this up, Senate Majority Leader John Thune confirmed the Clarity Act will receive a Senate vote before the August recess. I want you to listen to what he says and see if you can tell whether the Clarity Act is the very first thing on his mind.
John Thune: What do you believe you can get accomplished before the August recess, and then when you come back in September — how imperative is it that these items get voted on?
Well, first off, we're going to do Russia sanctions, and that's a tribute to Lindsey Graham, who we're all going to commemorate tomorrow. I think we'll get that done. I think we've got to fund the government, and I think we're on a path to do that.
Interviewer: You think Chuck Schumer is shutting it down?
John Thune: We'll see. I'm going to find out this week. But I think there's also a package of nominations — about 74 nominations that the president has put forward — that we're now moving in block. We'll do that. We will probably have a vote on the Clarity Act, which is the digital assets bill legislation that's in front of the Senate. We'll see if the Democrats give us the votes to get on that. There's also a possibility on NIL legislation. I had a couple of conversations over the weekend with people like Ted Cruz and Eric Schmidt, who have been working on that issue — that's the college sports issue. A lot of people are interested in that.
How — I know the president has leaned on you hard. He's leaned on Mike Johnson hard. You have very slim majorities. In terms of his priorities, what percentage of those do you believe you can have done before the midterm elections? Because he's got a lot on his wish list.
He does. The main thing he wants, as you know, is the Save America Act. That is something where we've had multiple votes on it now. Not a single Democrat has voted for it. I think we continue to put them on the record.
Host: So the Save America Act and the college sports act were discussed, and the Clarity Act was mentioned only briefly. Just so you know — and again, it's not a political channel — this is from the Bipartisan Policy Center. This is essentially what the Save America Act comes down to, in six pieces: citizenship is already a requirement to vote and instances of non-citizen voting are rare; many eligible citizens don't have access to documentary proof of citizenship; there are better ways to verify citizenship that put the responsibility on the government rather than solely on voters; the Save America Act could have unintended consequences for election officials and election administration; the Save America Act's photo ID requirements are more restrictive than any state law; and the Save America Act needs more time and resource amendment as well.
What this all really comes down to is: if you want to vote, you've got to put down ID and confirm you're actually a citizen. Do you think maybe this takes precedent over the Clarity Act? Do you think maybe this administration is saying to themselves, "Maybe we should get that one done first"? I don't know. But John Thune seems to say the Save America Act is a pretty high priority.
Bitcoin Mining Difficulty Adjustment
Host: Bitcoin is about to give miners a 16% lifeline. Bitcoin could lower mining difficulty by roughly 16% when the next adjustment arrives around July 26th — I believe that's already passed. The network already lowered difficulty by 5% at block 957,600 on July 11th, bringing it to 127 trillion.
This is the beauty of the Bitcoin network. If you have very few miners on it, the difficulty level isn't too hard. And if the difficulty level isn't too hard, that means it doesn't take so much electricity to actually mine Bitcoin. When more Bitcoin miners come on and they're all competing, the difficulty level goes up and the hash rate goes up because everybody's trying to get that sweet 3.125 Bitcoin. Of course, that is why we have the halving.
Moving forward, we can see that the hash rate, according to Coin Wars, has gone up exponentially since around 2015, 2016, 2017 — right around the time I got into Bitcoin, actually, around 2017. You can just see that all the Bitcoin miners said, "I want a piece of that action." And over time it's gone up and up and up. We peaked roughly in December 2025. And now you can see we are collapsing as far as the hash rate goes.
Why is that? Well, there are a couple of reasons. It's actually good for some Bitcoin miners — they don't have to spend so much on electricity. But there's also the issue of miners just getting run off because it's so expensive. And another thing is AI.
The gigantic Bitcoin mining operations will actually benefit from the difficulty level adjustment going down. The top Bitcoin miners out there are Mara Holdings, Core Scientific, Riot, Clean Spark, Bit Deer, Iron, Canaan, HUT 8, and Terawulf. I'm sure you've heard of some of these.
Why is the difficulty level dropping? Is it because all these Bitcoin miners are shutting down? Well, probably some of that, but also because they've found a new stream of revenue — and that is what business is all about. I commend them for doing it because I want them to stay up. I don't want everybody to collapse.
Clean Spark developed and commercialized AI and high-performance computing campuses. Mara Holdings positioned most of their non-hosting capacity so it can support AI and critical IT workloads. Riot made a great deal with AMD — a data center lease establishing critical IT capacity at their Rockdale site. Terawulf made off like a bandit — they signed a 20-year Anthropic lease covering approximately 41 megawatts of critical IT load and $19 billion of expected contracted revenue. That's a pretty good play. HUT 8 signed a second 352-megawatt Beacon Point lease.
So if you've got different miners saying, "You know what, we want to make some more money and we're going to go over here" — let them. That's great. The difficulty level adjusts, everything starts to get a little bit easier, and then hopefully Bitcoin miners will stay and we don't see a collapse.
Crypto Security Warning — Fake Wallet App Lawsuit Against Apple
Host: A little public service announcement. Be careful out there, because nobody is watching out for you and everybody is trying to steal your Bitcoin. Also, they're trying to steal all your altcoins. Also, they're trying to steal everything from you, including your ID.
You may notice underneath me are these five rules. They've been here since 2022. The catalyst for these rules was the collapse of Voyager, Celsius, BlockFi, FTX, Three Arrows Capital — you name it. We made these rules back then and I said I will never take these rules down as long as they have some sort of utility and focus. It's worked out pretty well.
Rule number one: it's all gone. Don't invest more than you can afford to lose. Rule number two: 100% scams. Everything is a scam until proven otherwise. Even listening to me — you have to double-check me because I could be making all this stuff up. Rule number three: don't leave things on exchanges. Treat them like a gas station bathroom — get in, do your business, and get out. Rule number four: don't use leverage. And rule number five: take profits along the way. Very simple stuff.
This is why Apple — which has been very stringent on what they allow as far as their apps — apparently allowed people to lose almost $2 million. A lawsuit alleges Apple kept a fake Bitcoin wallet app on the App Store after an $875,000 theft was reported. So it was reported to Apple, and they essentially said, "Yeah, yeah, we'll get to it." And they didn't. Someone else downloaded it and lost $840,000. Three plaintiffs — I stand corrected, it was not two, it was three — claimed they lost $1.84 million after entering their seed phrase into the app. Apple told MacRumors it has since removed apps impersonating Sparrow Wallet and terminated the associated developer accounts.
Two things. First of all, this is why people hate crypto. This is why the normies in that Super Bowl commercial were booing Coinbase. This is why a lot of people really don't want to get in — because of stuff like this. The most effective investor is a scammer. They use absolutely none of their own money, and all it takes is time. The return on investment is essentially infinity.
The second thing is: I want you to put yourself in the shoes of the person who just lost almost a million dollars. Imagine you lost all your Bitcoin. You had a bad day at work. You come home. You've got the kids running around. There's too many things going on. You're a little groggy. You're like, "I've got to do this thing with Bitcoin real quick so I can get dinner ready." And then all of a sudden, it's all gone. Now you have to tell your wife, your husband, your kids, your grandkids — "I lost all the Bitcoin. That was our retirement. I'm really sorry." That would be devastating. I would like you not to do that. So remember: everything is a scam until proven otherwise.
DB Crypto, who is a great follow, reminds everybody: remove the $1.4 billion Bybit hack and 2026 hacks are up 28%. The biggest attack surface now is stolen keys — about half a billion dollars gone that way, which is the same thing that happened in the case we just talked about.
What are your options? You can do custodial services with iTrustCapital. You can put it on a cold storage device. You can use Ledger, but I don't like it. Trezor is my favorite. Or you can just do an ETF — do an ETF. I'm not here to tell you what to do. I know people say, "Not your keys, not your crypto." Who cares if you're going to do an ETF or something like that? Or you can put it in a Roth IRA or traditional IRA.
Q&A With the Audience
Host: Let's get into the Q&A. There was a good one from Mattio — Matt Yo, excuse me. Did Bitcoin dip because of the Clarity Act delay?
I think there's something to that, but it's also a bigger story. I forgot to mention that the SEC chair — there are rumors swirling around that Kevin Walsh may be talking about raising rates. As far as the governors when they go to vote on this, it's not just one guy — there are multiple, I want to say 12. Correct me in the comments section. But even if the different people on the board start to lean toward saying, "You know what, inflation is going up a little bit, maybe we should consider raising rates" — not keeping them the same and definitely not cutting, but raising rates — one of two things could happen. I don't think they're going to raise rates at tomorrow's meeting, which is the Fed's decision date. But if they do raise rates, you'll see a lot of red. And then also, when they publicly announce which governors said they want to keep rates the same, lower them, or raise them — if you have more than two people talking about raising rates, that's also going to send crypto and digital assets down a good amount. And also the traditional markets, because they'll think, "Well, they didn't raise rates now, but another meeting is coming up." So I think there's that, plus the Clarity Act. And I don't know what's going on in Iran — I'm just tired of looking at it because someone's lying, so what's the point.
Larry says, "Clarity is dead. They should just drop it." I give credit to the ones fighting for it. Cynthia Lummis over in Wyoming is making her best case for it. And remember, I took a look at how many different bills get proposed and how many actually pass — it's between 3 and 7% that actually become law. So of all the bills out there, you're looking at 93 to 97% failing. I'd be ecstatic if this one went through, but who knows.
Rusty Ba is right — in midterm years since 1945, the S&P averages negative 1.2% from May through October before midterms. The six months after midterms have generally posted the strongest returns. There's another statistic too: the midterm election day, which this year is November 3rd — if you invest on that day in the S&P 500, statistically and historically speaking going from 1945 on, you would be up — I want to say it's like 32% — just because of how midterm election years work. It's amazing that the four-year cycle coincides with that. I don't know if Satoshi did it that way, but it worked out pretty well.
Larry says, "I sure hope it does. I just don't have it in me to say it's definitely going to pass." If this were a prediction market, I would pretty much put everything on it not passing.
Has anyone read the bill? I've read parts of it. It's not that great, I'll be honest with you. And we just had Letitia James, the attorney general of New York, come out and pretty much say it's garbage and trash and it won't protect anybody. Well, she is also the attorney general of New York — they said the same thing about most crypto companies, and that's why people in New York have to have a special provision just to trade crypto. Sorry, New Yorkers.
Kelby says, "I bought more IBIT today in my health savings account." Very nice. I like that move.
Is the Clarity Act not passing really going to dump the markets? I don't know for sure, but I will say we're coming up against the wall for the AI investment thesis and how that relates to the S&P 500 and tech stocks, especially the Mag 7. If we start to lose some steam on that, I think we'll also lose steam on crypto. But people will say the exact opposite — there's a rotation of capital. Once they get done with that, some people are going to come over to crypto and invest everything into Bitcoin and some altcoins. I don't think everybody is going to do that. You have to understand, a lot of people despise crypto. A lot of people hate Bitcoin and are very leery of it, especially with the hacks we talked about. Could there be a rotation? I think some smart people will get into it because they know that in a bear market, this is the time to accumulate — because this is where all the money is made. I never made any money buying in the bull market. That's for sure.
Most of my alts topped one year before Bitcoin. Yeah, my plan did not fail. And that was the thing — remember when we were talking about this, the rotation: first Bitcoin would peak like it did in 2017 and 2021, then there would be like a small window of six to eight weeks where they would rotate into the altcoins, and then everything would collapse. Didn't happen this time. Altcoins ran first. Bitcoin ran all the way to October, then everything collapsed.
Michael asks, "Why would you enter a seed phrase into an app?" I think it could be a coordinated play. Someone talks about it on a social media platform, sends out emails, or someone was just searching for a Bitcoin wallet because they didn't know what they were doing — and that's the problem. They look for it, and then maybe there was some easy information like, "Hey, give us these keys." And they put the keys in thinking, "He's going to keep it safe. I heard somebody say, 'Don't leave crypto on exchanges.' So I'm going to get an app." Think of the normal person's thought process: I have Cash App, I have Venmo, I have Zelle. It's an app. The app allows me to move funds around. I go to the most trusted place ever — Apple — and Apple says, "Just download this and put in some keys." They do that, and then they're like, "What happened to all my Bitcoin?" People will say, "Well, I didn't keep it on the exchanges. I did my job." And that's why, if you orange-pill somebody, every single person — unless you want them to despise you and hate you for the rest of your life — you are responsible for those people. If you bring in your mom, you can't just say, "All right, mom, buy a bunch of Bitcoin" and then leave her alone. She'll lose it.
Gig Dice is right: "Crypto is a constant battle against everyone and everything. Only the vigilant and paranoid survive." You know who is super paranoid? Crypto Crow. I was talking to him in Vegas at some event. He was telling me he's got a computer that has never touched the internet and it's in some undisclosed location outside of his house — not even on his land or his property. I'm like, "Jason, that's what you do?" He's like, "Yeah, that's exactly what I do." I go, "Well, how do you move crypto?" He's like, "I drive to that place, I get that machine, I do everything I have to do, and I drive back." I go, "Isn't that a pain?" He's like, "Yeah, but if it's a pain for me, imagine someone trying to steal from me." I'm like, "Not a bad idea."
What about exchange holders that can't get their crypto off BitMEX and BitMart? I don't know what's going on with that, but I hear some bad things. It's early, so we'll see.
As a reminder, I used to talk about Voyager and Celsius and how great they were. And they were great — Voyager had the best user interface. It was so good. They did the dumbest thing of all time: they made what I think was a $460 million uncollateralized loan. Just moronic. No collateral. "Here's $460 million. No, no, no — we don't want collateral. Go right ahead. We trust you guys." And Celsius was essentially a Ponzi scheme. Thankfully, we figured it out, but it was kind of too late. I figured out Celsius at a conference in Austin — one of those ETH ones — came back, did the show, and then like 24 hours later the whole thing collapsed. Voyager at least gave us two weeks. That was actually a good one, because in their public filings — they were a public company, I think in Canada — it said specifically: we made this much of a loan, this is who we made it to, this was the collateral. And I read it and I'm like, "There's no collateral." And we got people out. It was a two-week thing. But even I got stung by those jerks. Not well. You live and you learn. We screw up, we make mistakes, we just have to pick ourselves up and keep going.
One thing I like about Trezor is that you can do a seed phrase or not a seed phrase. I personally don't like seed phrases. You buy these cards and there are three of them. First of all, if you have a lot of crypto on one of those cards, why are you walking around with that thing? That's not smart. You keep one card in one location, another card in another location — maybe in a bank deposit box — and another card with somebody you trust, or hide it somewhere. People will say, "Well, if a hacker has that card, can't they get everything?" No. They would have to wrench-attack you and tie you up in your house, because they have to get into the app first. And the app has biometrics — your face, your thumb — not just a password. They have to get into the app first and then use the card. Now, they could reset everything if they have two cards, and that's why you never carry the card around.
Kelby sums it up: "Bitcoin to 100K. It'll reach again." I think it will.
Anyhow, that's it for today. This could be good news depending on where you're at in the cycle. If the Clarity Act doesn't pass, we'll probably have some problems. And if the AI trade doesn't work out, we'll probably go down. Good idea to accumulate. Midterm years are not the years to make a ton of money. Midterm years are just here so we can have a little break, accumulate, and then sell in the bull market.