24 Jun 2025, 18:30

COIN Act: a new turn in the Democrats battle v Trump’s cryptocurrency business?

Sen. Adam Schiff from the Democratic Party introduced a new bill, the COIN Act, aimed at blocking U.S. Presidents and their families from promoting or launching cryptocurrency ventures. Why did Democrats come up with a new bill, and what is at stake for Donald Trump? Table of Contents The new act Burgeoning crypto empire of the Trumps Future of the COIN Act The new act The full name of the bill introduced by Adam Schiff is Curbing Officials’ Income and Nondisclosure Act. The new act is not explicitly aimed at ruining Trump’s cryptocurrency business. Rather, it bans all the sitting presidents, vice presidents, and their immediate family members (siblings, spouses, and children) from using their privileged position in the crypto space and other financial spaces. On top of cryptocurrencies, the act regulates (bans) endorsements and issuance of securities, commodities, and futures. The act bars top officials and their families from endorsing crypto projects and other assets and using the likeness of their names or images for the promotion of crypto ventures. The legislation is also blocking the issuance and sponsorship of assets. The COIN Act does not prohibit presidents and their families from purchasing, holding, and sending cryptocurrencies. Crypto assets held by senior officials are subject to disclosures just like other financial assets. Violators are penalized and are subjected to disgorgement of their illegal profit to the Treasury of the U.S. If the violation led to an aggregate loss of $1,000,000 or more to a citizen or several citizens of the U.S. or if the assets were used for bribery, violators can be subjected to criminal prosecution. Understandably, insider trading and fraud are also banned. Democrats have tried to push similar regulations before. In the spring of 2025, they tried to add clauses that would ban Trump from the crypto business to the Genius Act, regulating stablecoins. However, Democrats didn’t succeed in amending the bill. Seemingly, that was the reason for creating a new one, fully dedicated to the ties of the top officials with the business. Read more: Senate crypto bill collapses: Is partisan divide or Trump’s digital fortune to blame? Burgeoning crypto empire of the Trumps As Trump and his family are closely tied to several cryptocurrency projects, the COIN Act threatens their well-being. Adam Schiff makes it clear in a video he posted on X. Donald Trump and other senior administration officials have made a fortune off of crypto schemes. Today, I'm introducing the COIN Act to put a stop to this corruption in plain sight. pic.twitter.com/8wieNSCPgC — Adam Schiff (@SenAdamSchiff) June 23, 2025 In the video, Schiff says that from Trump’s recent financial disclosure , we learned that the POTUS has gained substantial amounts of money from selling branded goods with this image or name on them (including the Trump-labeled Bible). However, Schiff continues, the most lucrative source of income for Trump and his family is the “cryptocurrency scheme.” One of the elements of this scheme is the Official Trump memecoin (the proceeds from this venture are not subjected to disclosures, as Trump launched the token before the inauguration). Another element of the scheme mentioned by Schiff is the stablecoin USD1 launched by World Liberty Finance, a company closely tied to Donald Trump and his sons, Donald and Eric. Through his involvement in World Liberty Finance, Donald Trump alone made $57 million in the first quarter of 2025. The COIN Act threatens these ventures, as its ban on involvement in the crypto business stretches from 180 days pre-term to two years following the end of the term. It would make proceedings from memecoins Official Trump and Melania illegal, as well as the Trump family’s involvement in World Liberty Finance. In January 2025, Trump Media and Technology Group, the parent company behind Truth Social, announced it would allocate $250 million in cryptocurrencies through a new platform Truth.Fi. Eric Trump is the chief strategic officer of the new mining venture American Bitcoin. In May, the company announced it was going public . 98% of the company belongs to Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. Future of the COIN Act Schiff supported the GENIUS Act despite the fact that the restrictions for crypto businesses for senior officials were omitted from the bill. Generally, it shows that Schiff is not going to serve as a hurdle for crypto innovation in the U.S., while he is still concerned about eye-popping Trump’s conflict of interest. As of the press time, the COIN Act has the support of nine Senate Democrats. It is too early to judge if the proposal will see success. Previously, Republicans showed no interest in limiting Trump’s involvement in the crypto business, so the COIN Act may be rejected just like the amendments to the GENIUS Act that were denied before. However, time will show if this defining bill will become the rule. You might also like: U.S. Senate passes landmark Genius Act, aiming to bring clarity in stablecoin regulation

24 Jun 2025, 18:29

The Future of Money Is Streaming Now

We stream data. We stream music. We stream video. Thanks to stablecoins, we are about to start streaming the whole economy. U.S. dollar stablecoins recently hit a milestone–they represent about 1% of the U.S. money supply (based on the M2 measure). Not a big deal, you may be thinking, but in fact, it might become one in the near future. Stablecoins are growing at a phenomenal rate, about 55% per year. While that is unlikely to continue forever, it is not hard to foresee a future, less than a decade away, where stablecoins represent an amount equal to about 10% of the M1, which is defined as cash, notes, and "easily accessible" digital money like current bank accounts. Stablecoins are designed to be easily accessible and usable, which certainly seems like it would fit into that definition of the money supply. Indeed, on-chain services are starting to look a lot like standard banking services. Except they work faster and cost a lot less. Now, imagine if moving money around was, effectively, free, and instantaneous. Would you manage your money differently? You might. Indeed, global firms are already starting to think about it. Today, companies keep lots of money in lots of separate locations all around the world. It’s not particularly different to how they manage physical inventory. Since moving money across borders is expensive and slow, firms must keep a decent supply of cash on hand locally to pay bills. And, since customers do not necessarily pay invoices with absolute predictability, firms must keep a buffer of cash on hand to manage the variation between predictable costs, like payroll, and unpredictable revenues. Things may look different in the future. If it costs nothing to move money globally and it can be done nearly instantly, the size of those local buffers can be dramatically reduced. Instead of keeping two weeks' worth of expenses locally, including payroll, you might just choose to keep only a day's worth on hand. A slightly larger cash pile can be kept centrally and sent out as needed. Companies could rebalance their global cash holdings every six hours. The result: a significant decrease in working capital requirements. What may start at a global level for large firms could spread quickly, and not just in the B2B space. Why not pay every employee every day for actual hours worked? Payday lenders make a fortune today tiding people over between weekly paychecks. Why not bill customers daily for electricity usage? Electric utilities today wait 30 days to bill you and wait another 30 days for you to pay. The gap between when you use power and when you pay for it can be up to 60 days. This sounds preposterous except that the math pencils out. At 5% interest rates, a $10 debt over the course of a year generates $0.50 in interest at current rates, which is about $0.04 per month. Each week of "float" you can save (or earn) is worth roughly $0.01. Given that payment costs on Ethereum Layer 2 networks are now routinely below $0.01, the answer is yes, it is worth it. Transaction costs are headed in only one direction, which means the economically efficient size and frequency of managing your money only gets more granular. We used to buy music. Then we downloaded it. Now we stream it. Once upon time, the idea of streaming music on demand – and all the bandwidth and computation needed to do that – was seen as ridiculous. Now, it is barely a drop in the bucket compared to video streaming. There is no reason to think payments are different. As with all technological revolutions, the starting point is always "your mess for less." Which is to say that the first thing people will do is take existing processes (like monthly billing) and just run them cheaper. Then it becomes your mess, but faster. Eventually, companies start re-imagining those processes in light of the new economics. Slashing working capital requirements could rearrange the economy in surprising ways. Many companies keep enough cash on hand to cover 12 weeks of expenses. U.S. firms have, in aggregate, about $2 trillion of cash on hand and $2.8 trillion in working capital loans outstanding. Shifting to a financial streaming model could literally free up trillions in capital for new investment. It could also change people's behavior. The longer the time gap between an action and a reward, the harder it can be to get people to respond. Incentives for things like using services or energy at off-peak times might be much more effective when the payout is immediate. Nobody ever went wrong betting on instant gratification. Disclaimer: These are the personal views of the author and do not represent the views of EY.

24 Jun 2025, 17:44

Bitcoin Miner CleanSpark Hits 50 EH/s Hashrate Milestone

CleanSpark (CLSK), a U.S.-based bitcoin BTC mining firm, said Tuesday that it reached 50 exahashes per second (EH/s) of operational hashrate — a milestone that makes it one of the largest mining operations in the world. The company built and operates more than 30 sites across Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee and Wyoming. A vertically integrated setup gives CleanSpark control over energy procurement and operations, helping reduce costs and boost uptime. “It reflects years of focused strategy, disciplined execution, and a relentless commitment to doing things the right way,” said CEO Zach Bradford. Hashrate is a metric used to measure the computing power behind the Bitcoin network. The higher a given company’s hashrate, the higher its chances of earning bitcoin rewards. The firm is now preparing to scale up to 60 EH/s, with Bradford stating the company was in “escape velocity” mode. Meanwhile, CleanSpark’s Digital Asset Management arm has begun actively managing over 12,500 self-mined bitcoin to generate returns and support expansion without issuing new shares. “We’re mining bitcoin efficiently, holding it responsibly, and putting it to work in ways that drive shareholder value,” Bradford said.

24 Jun 2025, 16:55

Sonic’s rebound lacks volume; bearish structure not yet broken

Sonic has bounced hard from fresh yearly lows, but bearish market structure remains intact. For a true reversal, price must hold above $0.24 and reclaim $0.40 with volume-backed strength. Sonic ( SONIC ) recently dropped to a new yearly low near $0.24 before staging an impulsive rebound. The move has sparked speculation: is this a major bottom or just another short-lived bounce in a bearish market? While the sharp rally into the value area low shows some signs of life, the broader structure remains tilted bearish. For this rally to evolve into a longer-term reversal, key levels must be reclaimed, and volume must confirm the intent. Key technical points Yearly Low: $0.24; must hold to form a higher low and base for reversal. Critical Resistance: $0.40; reclaiming this level would break bearish market structure. Current Structure: Still bearish; lower lows and lower highs remain intact. Volume Profile: Still weak; strong volume needed to validate any breakout. SUSDT (1D) Chart, Source: TradingView Sonic’s drop to $0.24 marked a key inflection point, a new yearly low that could represent a final flush if the level holds. The recent rally into the value area low is technically significant, but so far, it lacks the volume and structure needed to confirm a sustained trend shift. For Sonic to build a convincing bottom, it must hold above $0.24 and begin forming higher lows on lower timeframes. A clean reclaim of $0.40 would be the first meaningful sign of structural change, breaking the series of lower highs that have defined the current downtrend. You might also like: ETHRANSACTION cloud mining: Passive Dogecoin mining made easy Volume remains a concern. While the bounce was impulsive, it appears driven more by a short squeeze than by genuine accumulation. The market had been heavily skewed to the downside, and Sonic’s sharp rise likely forced a flush of short positions. This type of move, while aggressive, doesn’t inherently signal trend reversal unless followed by sustained buying interest and structural improvement. If Sonic consolidates above $0.24 and begins printing higher lows with increasing volume, the case for a mid- to long-term reversal strengthens. Until then, traders should be cautious in interpreting this move as anything more than a technical relief bounce. What to expect in the coming price action The next few weeks will be critical for Sonic. Holding above $0.24 is essential to form a base. If price consolidates and reclaims $0.40 with rising volume, it could signal the start of a broader trend reversal. Otherwise, bearish pressure may resume. Read more: Chainlink and Mastercard partner to enable onchain crypto purchases

24 Jun 2025, 16:15

Bitcoin Mining Profitability Records Almost 20% Spike: Report

According to a Jefferies report, Bitcoin (BTC) mining profitability reportedly recorded almost a 20% uptick. This surge coincided with a nearly equal spike in the price of flagship cryptocurrency Bitcoin and a modest gain in the network hashrate. BTC Price Increases as Gold Price Spikes On Monday, investment firm Jefferies published a research report detailing Bitcoin mining progress. BTC mining profitability rose by 18.2% in May while the network hashrate gained 3.5%. This hashrate is the collective computational power used to mine and process transactions on a Proof-of-Work (PoW) blockchain like Bitcoin. Apart from the increase in hashrate, which serves as a proxy for competition amongst miners, Bitcoin price registered some profits, spurred by the recent rally in gold price . For context, investors turned to inflation-protected assets with the spike in gold prices. According to Jonathan Petersen and Jan Aygul, analysts from Jeffries, this move was in anticipation of a ballooning fiscal deficit in the United States, amongst other countries. MARA Holdings and CleanSpark Leads US-listed Mining Companies Jeffries’ report also listed the volume of Bitcoin mined by US mining companies last month. All the US-listed mining facilities mined a total of 3,754 BTC. According to the report, this is a notable increase compared to April, when they only mined 3,278 BTC. On the other hand, miners in North America made up 26.3% of the total network in May, compared to 24.1% the previous month. Out of this group, MARA Holdings (MARA) mined 950 Bitcoin, marking a 35% increase from April. It has successfully raised its total reserves to 49,179 BTC. It was followed by CleanSpark (CLSK) at 694 mined Bitcoin. It is worth noting that MARA’s hashrate is still the largest at 58.3 exahashes per second (EH/s). Bitcoin Mining Difficulty Records Slight Decline Meanwhile, Bitcoin mining difficulty has recorded a slight decline following a record high. This outlook offers some relief to miners, especially those who are dealing with rising costs and reduced block rewards. In mid-June, CryptoQuant shared data showing that the mining difficulty stood at around 126.4 trillion. This was just below the All-Time High (ATH) of 126.9 trillion recorded on May 31. Mining difficulty adjusts every two weeks to ensure that new blocks are mined roughly every 10 minutes. This is regardless of how much computing power is in the network. Therefore, the new mining difficulty record is expected in a few days. The post Bitcoin Mining Profitability Records Almost 20% Spike: Report appeared first on TheCoinrise.com .

24 Jun 2025, 16:05

What Tariffs Will — and Won’t — Change for U.S. Bitcoin Miners

Will tariffs end the golden age of bitcoin mining in America? After China banned crypto in the summer of 2021, a huge chunk of the mining industry was forced to relocate — to Kazakhstan, Russia, Canada and other countries with cheap electricity. The biggest beneficiary of this exodus, however, was the United States, which over the last four years has overtaken every other country in the world in terms of hashrate (meaning that more bitcoin is produced in the U.S. than anywhere else). Yet President Donald Trump’s tariff policies, unveiled on April 2 but paused for the time being, threaten to increase the costs of ASICs , the extremely powerful computers used to produce bitcoin. Only a handful of companies know how to build these ASICs, and the majority of their manufacturing facilities are located in Southeast Asia, in nations that face roughly 10% to 50% tariffs. While the new taxes probably won’t make it prohibitively expensive for U.S.-based miners to import new machines, they will likely slow down the industry’s expansion in the country, multiple experts told CoinDesk. “The U.S. is still going to be the major source of hashrate globally for the foreseeable future, but its overarching dominance will likely erode as bitcoin mining becomes a much more global business,” said Taras Kulyk, CEO of bitcoin hardware firm Synteq Digital. “We're certainly going to see U.S. hashrate plateau in terms of relative growth,” he added. “Other countries are coming into the space in a big way. Pakistan just announced it will dedicate two gigawatts of power to bitcoin mining. There are all sorts of projects happening in Ethiopia and abroad. They will certainly take up quite a bit of hashrate capacity growth.” Tariffs are only a piece of a much larger puzzle. Other factors, such as the enormous demand for new data centers dedicated to artificial intelligence (AI) and the diminishing number of ideal U.S. locations for firms to set up mining facilities, are likely to have a larger impact on a miner’s calculations when it comes to choosing a jurisdiction in which to operate. U.S.-based operations are still, in the short-term, able to tap into a robust secondary market in order to acquire mining rigs without paying tariffs. In the long-term, ASIC manufacturers are taking steps to produce their machines on U.S. soil. The consensus seems to be that, far from destroying bitcoin mining in the U.S., tariffs are simply shaping up to be a new variable that the quick-moving, hyper-competitive industry has to contend with. Biting the bullet Tariffs mostly presented a challenge to miners in April because of how sudden and steep they were. Miners and logistics companies rushed to push ASIC shipments into the U.S. before the policy’s implementation in order to avoid paying substantial taxes — only for the White House to push the deadline back a few months. Now, however, mining firms have adapted to the idea that imported ASICs will cost at least 10% more than they used to. But there is uncertainty as to whether this is the new normal. The Trump administration is still in the midst of trade negotiations, and the court system has yet to provide a definite ruling on the lawfulness of its new policies. “It’s likely going to take a long time for us to have a definitive answer on what tariffs will look like — at least until the Supreme Court weighs in,” Lauren Lin, head of hardware at bitcoin hardware firm Luxor Technology, told CoinDesk in an interview. “We expect it to take a few months, even over a year.” In the meantime, Luxor (which also runs a freight-forwarding business) isn’t seeing any signs of panic among its clients, though there has been an uptick in questions on how to prepare for Washington’s policy changes, according to Lin. Nor is the ASIC secondary market (where U.S.-based firms can acquire pre-owned, cheaper machines) slowing down, she said. In other words, miners are plodding along. But there are new difficulties, like the fact that tariffs also impact imported electrical hardware. Transformers, for example, are mostly manufactured overseas and were already difficult to obtain before April. Tariffs have only worsened the situation. This has been a bigger source of frustration for miners than tariffs on ASICs, according to an individual who works for a crypto trade organization. Overall, the White House’s initial tariffs on Southeast Asian nations should only be seen as a starting point for a policy that will likely evolve over time, Jeff LaBerge, head of capital markets and strategic initiatives at bitcoin miner Bitdeer, told CoinDesk in an interview. “We're pretty optimistic that there'll be a reasonable outcome at the end of this,” he said. Made in America The $30 billion ASIC market is dominated by Bitmain, a Chinese firm whose machines power roughly 80% of Bitcoin’s hashrate , according to TheMinerMag. Its competitors include MicroBT, Canaan and Bitdeer. These companies manufacture the vast majority of their ASICs in Malaysia, Thailand and China, though MicroBT already has at least one facility in Pennsylvania, and Bitmain announced in December that it was launching a new production line in the United States. Canaan has also completed a U.S. trial run, meaning that it now has the capacity to build ASICs in the country if it chooses to. The Trump administration’s tariffs are accomplishing one of their stated objectives (to boost U.S. industry) in that they’re incentivizing these ASIC manufacturers to scale up their operations in the country. Canaan told CoinDesk that, while production in the U.S. is costly, it brings the advantages of being geographically closer to their customers and of reducing supply chain risks. The firm said that it is currently exploring the possibility of partnering with existing U.S.-based manufacturers for its own purposes. MicroBT is also looking into ways to avoid tariffs by ramping up U.S. production. Bitdeer, a new but technologically advanced player in the ASIC scene , is looking at the situation as an opportunity to seize market share from the incumbents. “We'd like to migrate as much as we can to the U.S.,” LaBerge said. “It will take some time to ramp that up.” “Being a manufacturer and a miner gives us tremendous optionality, because we'll always have a home for the rigs that we produce, whether it's in our own data centers or with a third party,” he added. Bitdeer has mining operations in Texas and Ohio, among other locations. The heavyweight, Bitmain, has not communicated new plans to ramp up U.S. production since tariffs were announced in April. But the company will likely want to demonstrate that it’s building in the U.S. in accordance with the Trump administration’s goals, Synteq’s Kulyk said. Bitmain did not respond to a request for comment. In any case, the consensus seems to be that expanding production capacity in the U.S. will be a slow and costly process. “Whether we scale our machine manufacturing in the U.S. depends on our ability to cut costs as well as demand from our U.S. customers. If demand from U.S. customers is low, manufacturing here doesn't make sense,” Canaan told CoinDesk. “In addition, if tariffs on products from Southeast Asia [end up being] low, then we don't necessarily need to build up our manufacturing capabilities in the United States.” The end of a golden age? So miners are quickly adapting to the new reality of tariffs, and ASIC manufacturers look ready to ramp up local production. Nevertheless, Bitcoin’s U.S.-based hashrate ( currently worth over 40% of global hashrate ) is unlikely to keep growing as fast as it has in the last four years. For one thing, tariffs do have an impact. Bitcoin mining is a highly competitive industry, and companies are always looking for ways to cut costs. If the choice is between opening a new mining facility in Texas or in Ontario, tariffs may swing the decision in favour of the latter. More important, however, is the fact that it’s getting harder to find new U.S. locations that meet the necessary requirements for spinning up new bitcoin mining operations. “Most of the low-hanging fruit has been picked in the U.S.,” LaBerge said. Not to mention that competition has become more intense. Data centers dedicated to high-performance computing (HPC) are popping up all over the country in order to scale AI capabilities, and the industry’s major players — Microsoft, Meta, Google — are deep-pocketed. If a site is suitable for both mining and HPC, the miners are unlikely to win a bidding war. Nor would they necessarily want to. HPC data centers are more complex and capital intensive to build , but they also bring in much higher profits; this has led a number of bitcoin mining firms to diversify into AI. “HPC chasing electrons is the main theme for the next two to 10 years,” Kulyk told CoinDesk. “Bitcoin miners most certainly have targets on their backs for acquisition and consolidation in the space… As a sector, they will likely get eaten or absorbed into overall digital compute.” This phenomenon is likely to stay contained to the U.S. because of the technical sophistication required to build and run HPC centers. Political considerations also play a big part, considering the ongoing AI arms race between the U.S. and China. In other words, bitcoin miners outside of the U.S. won’t be impacted by the rapid growth of the HPC industry the same way. For U.S.-based miners, the path forward may no longer be expanding in terms of megawatts, but in terms of efficiency, according to LaBerge. “If you look at the global hashrate right now… the majority of rigs have an efficiency of 30 joules per terahash (J/TH) or higher,” he said. For comparison, Bitmain and Bitdeer’s latest generation machines are closer to 10 J/TH in efficiency. “In today’s economics, that’s marginally profitable at best.” “All of those rigs need to be refreshed,” he continued. “We see this as a $4-6 billion a year addressable market for the next three to five years.” CORRECTION (June 24, 2025, 16:30 UTC): Canaan isn't looking into building its own U.S.-based manufacturing facilities, as previously stated by the article, but is mulling the idea of partnering with existing U.S. manufacturers.