News Block: Bitcoin & Gold Just Made History for the Wrong Reasons, How BTC Impacts Home Prices, and the Fight That Could Split Bitcoin

**Natalie Brunell** (0:01)
Welcome to the Coin Stories News Block, powered exclusively by Ledn. I'm Natalie Brunell, and in about 10 minutes or less, I'll provide you with insightful updates on Bitcoin, financial markets and the global economy. Everything you need to know in one block. Let's go.
Bitcoin briefly climbed back above 64,000 this past weekend before pulling back to the 62,000 range. It's been a choppy start to July, but the broader trend is actually still up about 7% on the month after a pretty brutal June. That strength is notable when you consider the macro backdrop. The Iran conflict flared up again this weekend, with Iran claiming it closed the Strait of Hormuz again. That's the waterway that carries roughly a fifth of global oil. The US disputes that claim, so the uncertainty there is real. And yet investors have largely looked through it. The S&P 500 has hit 24 all-time highs this year alone and remains close to record levels. But the market has not been kind to Bitcoin or gold. Even after this bounce, Bitcoin is still down roughly 30% on the year, and gold is down about 7%.
According to analyst Charlie Bulello, they are the two worst-performing major assets of 2026, a combination he says has never happened in any previous calendar year. So does that mean the debasement trade is over? Well, at least for now.
Now, some people are hoping for a recovery soon, but one move doesn't end a bear market. The more important shift might not be happening on the price chart. It's happening inside one of the largest, most conservative institutions in global finance. This past week, Vanguard, the second largest asset manager in the world, overseeing more than $10 trillion and serving over 50 million investors, posted a job listing for a head of digital assets. Now, if you follow Bitcoin, you know why that matters. In January 2024, Vanguard refused to let its customers buy the newly launched spot Bitcoin ETFs. Meanwhile, BlackRock, Fidelity and others were attracting billions of dollars and Vanguard just shut the door. By December 2025, they softened, allowing third party crypto ETFs on the platform. But this is a step further. According to the job description, the new hire will lead all of Vanguard's digital asset strategy, the roadmap and execution across the entire wealth platform. Vanguard is no longer debating whether it needs a digital asset strategy. It is actually building one. That's the game theory of Bitcoin adoption playing out in real time. Competitors moved first, captured billions in assets and eventually Vanguard decided it couldn't just sit on the sidelines anymore. And it's part of an even larger shift. Treasury Secretary Bessent said in June, Digital assets, stable coins, tokenization, and new payment systems will help to shape the future of money. The United States should not consign itself to the sidelines while that future is built elsewhere. By the way, if you haven't listened to that speech or read the transcript, I highly recommend it. Bear markets point everyone's attention toward price, of course, but underneath the surface, the custody improves, the distribution expands, and institutions are building expertise. That's what adoption looks like before it shows up in the price. We're watching the steady erosion of resistance one institution at a time.
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All right, I want to turn to something that really struck me this week because it completely changes how you think about home prices. In June, the median price of an existing US home hit a record $440,600.
That's up 1.8% from just a month ago and marks the 36th straight month of rising prices. The National Association of Home Builders estimates that nearly two-thirds of American households, that's more than 88 million, can no longer afford the median price new home. The American dream of homeownership is slipping further out of reach. But Fidelity Digital Assets published a chart this week that tells a completely different story. Instead of measuring the average home in dollars, they measured it in Bitcoin and the picture flips entirely. In early 2020, the average US home cost more than 50 Bitcoin.
Today, it costs roughly 7 The home got more expensive in dollars, but 90% cheaper in Bitcoin. Now, that doesn't mean every Bitcoin holder can suddenly afford their dream house. But it tells you something profound about the money we use to measure everything. Between February 2020 and April 2022, the US money supply expanded by roughly 40%. We've covered that on the show before. Trillions of new dollars flooded the system. And where did that money go? Scarce assets, housing, stocks. Everything with a supply that can't just expand on command repriced higher. That's what makes changing your unit of account so powerful. When you price the world in dollars, everything looks more expensive. When you price it in Bitcoin, even though we're in a bear market, you start to see what's really happening. The assets aren't always getting more valuable. The measuring stick is getting weaker. That is the story of Fiat Debasement hiding in plain sight. And it's exactly why Bitcoin exists. All right, in one final story worth your attention, the biggest governance debate in Bitcoin since the 2017 block size wars. A proposal called BIP 110 would introduce a temporary one-year soft fork that limits arbitrary data storage on the Bitcoin blockchain, such as large inscriptions, images and certain token protocols. Supporters argue this data has bloated the chain, raised node operating costs and shifted focus away from Bitcoin's core role as money.