Ethics and Oil | MJBurrows Crypto - Issue No 5

The bill's trust problem

The bill meant to give crypto its rulebook has run into the most basic test of one: can the people writing the rules be trusted to follow them? The Clarity Act split the Senate this week as the very Democrats Republicans need — Cory Booker, Mark Warner and Raphael Warnock among them — branded the latest draft too weak on ethics, conflicts of interest and market integrity. The awkward figure at the centre is President Trump, whose disclosure showed more than $1.4 billion earned from crypto in 2025 — a number that turns every line about conflicts of interest into a pointed question. Republicans, who need 60 votes and around ten Democrats, insist the draft carries the toughest safeguards yet written. With the Senate breaking for recess on 7 August, the maths only works if the holdouts fold.

The price reads a different script

The price, meanwhile, was following a different script. Bitcoin slipped to around $65,500, easing off Wednesday's $66,700 high, with ether, solana and XRP all drifting lower alongside it — yet nothing broke inside crypto. The selling was imported. Oil pushed up to $88.60 a barrel, its highest since mid-June, after a US strike on Iranian military targets revived the inflation worry that keeps central banks from cutting. The two-year Treasury yield jumped to 4.31%, its highest in over a year, quietly raising the cost of holding anything that pays no income — Bitcoin and gold alike. Polymarket's odds on the Clarity Act passing did their bit too, sliding to 38%. When cash starts paying you to wait, the yieldless assets are the first to feel it.

A rulebook stuck on a trust problem, and a price shoved around by oil and bonds — crypto's week, once again written almost everywhere but crypto. The cards below, then the rest of the issue. — MJB

President Trump banked more than $1.4 billion (~£1.0bn) from crypto last year. This week, as Senate Republicans rushed out a fresh draft of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, the very Democrats they need to pass it said the ethics safeguards fall nowhere near far enough. Yet the bill meant to bring order to crypto now has a glaring integrity problem of its own — and the clock is running down to the summer recess.

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The odds of America’s flagship crypto bill becoming law just slid from 46% to 38%. Yet the bigger drag on the Bitcoin price this week is not Washington — it is a barrel of oil near $88.60 and a bond market that suddenly pays you to wait. Bitcoin slipped to $65,500 on Thursday, easing off Wednesday’s high, with ether, solana and XRP following it lower. Little changed inside crypto. The macro backdrop underneath it did.

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Two stories, one punchline: the market built to ignore governments spent the week hanging on a Senate ethics vote and the price of a barrel of oil. Bitcoin didn't flinch at anything crypto-native — no hack, no protocol drama — it just did what every risk asset did when yields jumped and crude climbed. Rebel asset; very obedient macro trade. — MJB