🪙 Preparing Bitcoin for Q-Day
🗞️ Stacks in Q2 2026
💰 Yield Recap
📈 Weekly Market Review

This week, I tracked Bitcoin’s progress across two fronts: security and finance.

On the security side, some of the largest names in Bitcoin and finance launched the Bitcoin Security Consortium, pledging $15 million to fund developers working on Bitcoin’s long-term security, including post-quantum cryptography.

On the finance side, Stacks published its Q2 ecosystem report. Cumulative wallets reached 1.6 million, and daily active users rose 55%. Hermetica contributed through USDh and hBTC, with hBTC reaching 75 BTC in TVL and USDh averaging 8% APY powered by STRC and basis.

The pieces of a Bitcoin economy are converging.

The race to prepare Bitcoin for Q-Day is intensifying. 

Major financial institutions and Bitcoin companies have launched the Bitcoin Security Consortium, backed by $15 million in member pledges over three years to support Bitcoin’s long-term security, including post-quantum cryptography.

Founding members include Anchorage Digital, ARK Invest, BlackRock, Block, Blockstream, Coinbase, Fidelity Digital Assets, Galaxy, and Strategy.

The consortium will fund developers and researchers already working on Bitcoin security while providing a credible public reference point as the quantum debate develops.

Q-Day is not here, but it's getting closer.

Large-scale quantum computers capable of threatening Bitcoin’s cryptography do not exist today, and credible estimates place the risk years away.

But Bitcoin’s decentralization makes early preparation necessary. Any meaningful security upgrade would require extensive research, review, and broad consensus, so the work must begin well before the threat becomes immediate.

As the consortium publishes its research and recommendations, Hermetica will assess any relevant standards for our infrastructure as they mature.

Bitcoin-native finance is getting broader.

Stacks’ Q2 ecosystem report shows growth across the infrastructure putting Bitcoin capital to work, from wallets and liquidity venues to lending markets, yield products, and institutional access.

Cumulative Stacks users reached 1.6 million. New wallets grew roughly 50% quarter over quarter, daily active users rose 55%, and BitFlow crossed $5 billion in cumulative transaction volume.

Hermetica contributed to that growth across two core pillars of BTCFi: stablecoins and Bitcoin yield. 

In Q2, hBTC reached 75 BTC in TVL, and its latest capped allocation filled within 24 hours. USDh averaged 8% APY, with STRC adding Bitcoin-backed credit alongside basis as a second yield source.

Hermetica was one part of a much broader quarter for the ecosystem, spanning wallets, lending, liquidity, institutional access, and new ways to put Bitcoin capital to work.

Read the full Stacks Q2 report for a closer look at how Stacks developed over the quarter.

Your assets had one job this week.

Produce more assets.

hBTC:1.4%
USDh: 8.0%

Job done.

Bitcoin traded higher this week, moving above $66,600 before returning toward $65,500. The move was driven by renewed demand for spot ETFs, with the Bitcoin ETF complex recording $499.05M in net inflows this week.

The market is not rotating wholesale from AI into Bitcoin. It is rotating away from indiscriminate risk. AI-linked mega-caps were repriced as investors questioned the cost of the capex cycle: QQQ fell roughly 2.1%, Nvidia 2.2%, Alphabet 7.0%, Tesla 14.3%, and the Roundhill Magnificent Seven ETF dropped 4.5%, one of its worst sessions since April 2025. 

Bitcoin’s marginal bid looks less like a broad risk-on surge and more like ETF-led demand absorbing pressure while AI beta gets repriced.

Data Summary:

Simple Moving Averages (SMAs) in Figure 1:

Bitcoin held above its 200-week SMA for a second week, keeping the recovery structure intact. Price is now trading above the 7-day SMA at $65,190, the 30-day SMA at $63,108, and the 200-week SMA at $62,882. The 200-week SMA remains the key structural support level. The 30-day SMA now sits above it, creating a near-term support cluster around $62,900-$63,100.

Price still trades below the 180-day SMA at $70,392, while the 360-day SMA at $87,117 remains the larger bull-trend confirmation level. Support levels are $65,200, $63,100, and $62,900, while resistance levels are $66,600, $68,900, and $70,400. A move above the mid-$66,000s would strengthen the recovery, but Bitcoin still needs to reclaim the $70,400 area to break the medium-term downtrend.

Net inflows totaled $499.05M this week.

Spot Bitcoin ETF flows moved from slightly negative to clearly positive, helping Bitcoin trade above the mid-$60,000s. Total spot Bitcoin ETF net assets rose to $80.36B from $77.74B last week, while cumulative net inflows increased to $51.85B.

DVOL rose to 38.75% from 36.32% last week, but remains near the lower end of its one-year range. The move higher reflects renewed demand for options protection after BTC failed to clear the mid-$66,000s, but DVOL remains well below the volatility spikes seen in February and June.

The setup is no longer pure volatility compression, but it is not panic either. Options markets are pricing a modest pickup in uncertainty as spot trades between near-term support and larger trend resistance. ETF inflows helped support BTC, but higher oil, rising Treasury yields, and tighter Fed expectations kept price below breakout levels. For now, DVOL suggests the market is preparing for a larger move, but has not yet committed to a direction.

The equal-weighted basis across observed maturities rose to 4.11% APR. The curve remains positive and tightly clustered, with a shallow front-end dip. August 14 is the curve low at 3.85%, while July 31 is the curve high at 4.34%, leaving a low-to-high spread of roughly 0.5 percentage points.

Beyond the front maturities, the curve is stable. August 28 sits at 4.02%, September 25 at 4.08%, December 25 at 4.09%, and March 26, 2027 at 4.15%. The back end is only modestly upward sloping, consistent with steady positive carry rather than aggressive leverage demand. Carry has improved, but the curve still sits below the 5%-8% range typically seen in stronger bull-market conditions.

The next FOMC meeting is scheduled for July 28-29, putting energy back in focus ahead of the decision. Brent briefly topped $100 after renewed Red Sea tensions added to existing Strait of Hormuz risk. A few weeks ago, Brent had fallen below $72 on hopes that Hormuz would fully reopen. This week reversed that relief. Energy shifted from a disinflationary tailwind back into an inflation risk.

AI also remained part of the macro backdrop. Fed Chair Warsh had already flagged AI investment as a growing macro variable, with equipment investment up roughly 8% year over year in Q1 and high-tech spending up nearly 25% over the four quarters. JPMorgan’s weekly recap showed the same divide in earnings: higher oil is helping energy companies, while AI demand is still carrying much of the tech sector, with semiconductors expected to drive nearly half of S&P 500 earnings growth.

But the equity market has started questioning the cost of the AI buildout. Alphabet fell more than 7% despite strong earnings and cloud growth after raising its 2026 capex outlook to $195B-$205B, about $15B higher at the midpoint than previously expected. Tesla fell roughly 13.7%, helping pull the Nasdaq down 2.6%, as investors focused on heavy AI spending, weaker cash flow, and whether future returns can justify the scale of investment.

For Bitcoin, ETF inflows supported BTC’s price action above $66,600, but higher oil, higher Treasury yields, and renewed Fed hike risk kept the move from becoming a clean breakout. The near-term market is trading the tension between ETF demand and tighter macro conditions.

Sincerely,
The Hermetica Team