Happy Friday, In A Nutshell this week:

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🚀⏰ Today’s news should be a ~4.35-minute read (728 words).

🧠 Quote Of The Week

"Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm."

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Research group [alloc] init has published a "Shielded Bitcoin" proposal that gives Bitcoin real privacy, no soft fork required.

You peg your Bitcoin into a private pool of encrypted "notes." Zero-knowledge proofs let you spend them with nobody able to see the sender, receiver or amount, verified by an indexer rather than a custodian. Peg back out to a fresh address and the on-chain trail ends there.

The authors, Clara Shikhelman, Misha Komarov and Aleksei Moskvin, say it brings Zcash-level privacy to Bitcoin's own base layer.

Privacy has always been Bitcoin's unfinished business. This is a serious attempt to finish it.

Jack Dorsey's Block has brought Bitcoin's Lightning Network to x402, an open payment standard built for AI agents.

x402 lets software pay for data, tools and digital services on its own, with no human clicking "buy". Backers include Google, AWS, Visa, Mastercard and Coinbase.

Stablecoins carry most of that traffic today. Block's Steve Lee called Lightning a step towards Bitcoin as everyday money for people "and the agents acting on their behalf".

The NYSE has signed a deal with Blockchain.com to bring tokenised US stocks and ETFs to its digital alternative trading system, letting shares trade and settle on-chain 24/7.

Regulators are moving in the same direction. CFTC chair Mike Selig says the agency has to reevaluate its rules for markets that never close, and has already sent the White House a proposal.

Wall Street and Washington are pressing on with the shift to on-chain markets, despite the Clarity Act failing to pass in Congress last week.

Raiffeisen Bank International is rolling out Bitcoin trading across its group in an expanded deal with Bitpanda.

RBI serves 18.8 million customers through around 1,300 branches, with banks in 11 countries across Central and Eastern Europe.

Its Austrian regional arm became the first traditional EU bank to offer crypto trading inside its banking app in 2024. The new deal swaps country-by-country setups for one plan across the group.

Bitcoin has climbed back above its 365-day moving average, a level CryptoQuant says has marked the start of every previous bull market.

On Monday, Bitcoin broke $87,000 for the first time since January. The same day, US spot Bitcoin ETFs took in $999 million, their biggest day of 2026.

Time will tell where this goes, but sentiment has clearly turned. Even analysts who'd called further downside are starting to flip bullish.

Full house last night at the Bitcoin Business Network's London quarterly event. Richard Byworth took the stage to a room packed with founders, investors, business owners and professionals.

Now we're bringing the same calibre of event to Newcastle, Leeds and Manchester, starting next week, with speakers still to be announced.

You don't need to be a member, run a business, or know much about Bitcoin. Turn up, bring a friend, and see what BBN is all about.

1. Monetary history explained in a 3-minute music video

2. Bitwise: Of 15 major institutions, not one reduced its Bitcoin allocation during the sell-off

3. European Central Bank president blocked Binance’s EU entry

4. Michael Saylor argues Clarity Act collapse is a win

5. Strive announces digital credit preferred income ETF

6. Coinbase adds fixed-rate bitcoin-backed loans

7. Polymarket sued by New York, calling prediction markets illegal gambling

8. USDT built natively on Bitcoin?

9. Bitget paused withdrawals after around $352 million left in suspected hack

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