The first cryptocurrency plunged to $73,000, Fidelity outlined crypto market trends for 2026, and Ethereum proposed private transactions, among other events from the past week.

Hormuz Pressure

Bitcoin started the week by breaking above the $77,000 level, which had previously acted as a barrier to upward movement. The main driver was a drop in oil prices following reports of positive developments in negotiations between the U.S. and Iran, suggesting the reopening of shipping lanes in the Hormuz Strait.

Hourly BTC/USD chart from Binance. Data: TradingView.

However, amid escalating conflict in the Middle East, prices fell below $73,000. In addition to political and macroeconomic pressures, CryptoQuant pointed to technical factors: spot trading volumes dropped to 2023 lows, creating a demand shortage in the market.

Over the week, Bitcoin lost approximately 3.7%, settling around $73,500.

Source: CoinMarketCap.

Most major altcoins exhibited similar trends. In contrast, BNB and HYPE continued to rise, increasing by 9.7% and 8.6%, respectively. The Hyperliquid token climbed to ninth place in market capitalization, surpassing Dogecoin.

Spot Bitcoin ETFs continued to experience outflows, which accelerated to $1.42 billion compared to $1.26 billion in the previous period.

Source: SoSoValue.

Ethereum funds also contributed to the negative trend, losing $241.4 million, up from $216 million the previous week.

Despite this, the crypto fear and greed index rose from 25 to 28 points, moving out of the zone indicating extreme investor fears.

Source: Alternative.me.

The total market capitalization shrank to $2.57 trillion. Bitcoin's dominance remained nearly unchanged at 59.3%, while Ethereum's share stayed below 10%.

Developers Propose Private Transactions for Ethereum

Facet co-founder Tom Lehman proposed incorporating the EIP-8182 standard into the upcoming Ethereum update called Hegota. This initiative aims to add a secure pool for private transfers of Ether and ERC-20 tokens at the base level of the network.

The system is planned to be deployed as a contract without an administrator key or pause functionality. Zero-knowledge proofs Groth16 will be used to validate transactions.

Lehman explained that current mixing services are ineffective due to fragmentation. New pools struggle to attract users without an existing base, and without liquidity, they cannot ensure adequate anonymity. EIP-8182 will create a unified environment for all wallets and applications, allowing users to send hidden transfers to regular addresses or ENS domains without creating special accounts.

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Fidelity Outlines Crypto Market Trends for 2026

Analysts at Fidelity Digital Assets reviewed the first half of 2026 and highlighted six structural trends shaping the industry. Experts believe this period is characterized by a "technological overhaul" of the ecosystem rather than a simple price rally.

Among the main trends identified by Fidelity are:

  • Accelerated convergence of the digital asset industry with traditional finance, driven by the emergence of options on spot Bitcoin ETPs and progress in asset tokenization by major banks.
  • Increased focus on token holder rights, with projects like Hyperliquid and Aave actively implementing buyback and revenue redistribution mechanisms.
  • Growing demand for computing power for AI, creating competition for traditional mining. Since the beginning of the year, the average 30-day hash rate has decreased by 8.8%, and difficulty has dropped by 7.8%.
  • Technical resilience of Bitcoin — the removal of data limits in OP_RETURN has not led to "bloated" blockchain, and Bitcoin Core's node dominance (~77%) ensures consensus stability, with growing interest in quantum-resistant updates.

The fifth point highlighted by Fidelity was the prevalence of bearish factors at the beginning of the year: Bitcoin lost 13% amid high inflation and forced liquidations. Despite this, institutional investors continue to build capital, and regulatory clarity is laying the groundwork for recovery.

The final trend concerns the strengthening of gold's position and a gradual move away from dollar-based infrastructure.

10,000 Critical Vulnerabilities: Anthropic Reports Initial Results of Project Glasswing

Anthropic released its first report on Project Glasswing — a vulnerability discovery program using the Claude Mythos model.

In a month, around 50 partners identified over 10,000 high and critical security issues. The company stated that the bottleneck was not the speed of discovery but the verification and release of patches.

The neural network scanned over 1,000 open-source projects and found 23,019 vulnerabilities of all levels. Of these, 6,202 were initially classified as "high" or "critical." Upon further verification, 90.6% of the findings were confirmed, including 62.4% requiring urgent intervention.

Also on ForkLog:

  • A hacker intercepted a $15 million GUA airdrop.
  • IBM accelerated its AI model using a quantum processor.
  • The U.S. Treasury Secretary ruled out the launch of a digital dollar.
  • Socket identified an attack on cryptocurrency and AI system developers.

Experts Warn of Accelerating Quantum Threat Due to AI

Artificial intelligence is accelerating the development of quantum computing and shortening the timeframe in which modern cryptography may lose its resilience.

Project Eleven head Alex Pruden stated that machine learning is already being used to optimize error correction — one of the key barriers to creating quantum computers. AI is utilized not only for protection but also for finding vulnerabilities in cryptography and software.

NEAR co-founder Ilya Polosukhin noted that AI has been accelerating scientific research for several years. He suggested that the next generation of quantum systems might be developed using it.

Polosukhin also pointed to the scenario of "collect now — decrypt later": encrypted traffic can be intercepted today with the expectation of future decryption.

Meanwhile, experts at Quantus believe the crypto industry is unprepared for a transition to post-quantum cryptography.

Wallets, exchanges, custodians, validators, bridges, and governance systems are all potentially at risk, as indicated in their research, The State of Quantum: What Crypto Can’t Afford to Ignore.

According to the company's specialists, the crypto market faces stricter constraints than traditional IT infrastructure. In centralized services, cryptography can be updated via patches. In blockchains, user-controlled fund storage, decentralized governance, and public keys can remain on the network for years.

What Else to Read?

We explored why Bitcoin behaved unexpectedly during the crisis around the Hormuz Strait and held its ground against market expectations.

We revisited Mike Lee's "Naked" (1993) as a film about cyberpunk, unbeknownst to itself.

We shared in ForkLog cards who Kevin Warsh is and what to expect from him as the new chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve.

We compiled the most notable security events of the week in our traditional digest.