Happy Friday, In A Nutshell this week:

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🚀⏰ Today’s news should be a ~4.49-minute read (730 words).

🧠 Quote Of The Week

“I don't believe we shall ever have good money again before we take the thing out of the hands of government.”

— F.A. Hayek

Channel 4 News has released a documentary tracking how Bitcoin marched into the White House, filmed on the floor of the Las Vegas Bitcoin Conference.

Reporter Helia Ebrahimi meets the lobby behind the most crypto-friendly administration in US history, including David Bailey, who lobbied Trump at Mar-a-Lago and mobilised single-issue voters. She also presses Strategy's Michael Saylor in a feisty exchange on wealth concentration and the risk to investors.

Bitcoin usually only reaches primetime for two reasons: a new all-time high, or a brutal bottom. This is not an all-time high.

After the worst first half in years, Bitcoin found a floor and bounced as Fed Chair Kevin Warsh softened his hawkish tone at the ECB's Sintra forum.

On 1 July it touched $57,950, a 21-month low, after June closed down around 20%. Then Warsh said inflation risks "have come down", weak jobs data followed with just 57,000 US roles added in June, and Bitcoin climbed back above $61,000.

History helps too. July has closed green in nine of the last thirteen years.

The FCA has published its final cryptoasset rules, completing a three-year roadmap and pitching the UK as a competitive home for digital-asset firms.

Trading platforms, custodians, intermediaries and stablecoin issuers all come under authorisation, with the gateway opening on 30 September and the full regime live from 25 October 2027. Industry bodies welcomed the clarity, and "pure DeFi" with no identifiable operator is set to sit outside the perimeter.

After years of mixed signals, it appears Britain is finally telling Bitcoin businesses where they stand.

Bitcoin payments firm Musqet has teamed up with First Dates' Merlin Griffiths to build an AI sales avatar for hospitality and food-and-drink merchants.

The avatar uses the Channel 4 mixologist's likeness and voice to walk publicans and restaurateurs through choosing a till system, around the clock and across more than 30 languages. Griffiths, who runs his own Leicestershire pub and is a vocal Bitcoiner, said it is worth it "if it saves one publican from a contract they regret".

Bitcoin adoption tends to arrive dressed as good business, not ideology.

K Wave Media, a Nasdaq-listed South Korean K-pop and content firm, has abandoned its Bitcoin treasury plan to pivot to AI.

The company once targeted up to 10,000 BTC with $1 billion of financing lined up. It has now filed to redirect as much as $485 million toward AI data centres and GPU compute, citing fatter, more predictable margins than Bitcoin's price swings, and plans to sell its remaining 658 BTC gradually.

Treasury plans built on hype rather than conviction were always going to chase the next shiny thing.

1. Strategy authorised a $2bn buyback and a plan to sell up to $1.25bn in Bitcoin to fund dividends

2. Bitcoin whales added more than 270,000 BTC in two weeks, per CryptoQuant

3. Bitcoin Core shipped a release candidate, v31.1rc1, that patches a node-privacy flaw

4. US spot ETFs logged their worst month on record at $4.51bn of outflows in June

5. Bitcoin mining difficulty fell about 10%, the second-largest drop of 2026

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