Markers Monday: BIP-110's Quiet Test Graded (With a Correction), H1 Closes, and Strategy's 8-K Sets Up the Fourth-Week Question

Monday, August 10 is settlement day on our marker board: M3 (the BIP-110 quiet test) comes due for its full grade, H1 (a new Strategy preferred series by today) closes, Q1 arms for Strategy's weekly 8-K expected this afternoon, and R2's ETF-flow arithmetic gets its first settled cell. We grade in public, misses included — and this issue contains one.

M3: the quiet test passes on the main chain — with a scope correction

M3 asked whether BIP-110's mandatory window would open without economic disruption, on a three-part checklist: no orphan/reorg activity, no signaling flips, no fee tell. The data through block 961,840 (06:10 UTC today, 209 blocks into the window): zero bit-4 signaling blocks out of 209; recommended fees pinned at 1 sat/vB across all tiers; no orphans or reorgs observed on the dominant chain; hashrate steady near 900 EH/s. On the checklist as written, M3 grades 3-for-3: PASS.

Now the correction. Saturday's issue reported the window opening with “no orphans/reorgs observed” — true for the chain we were watching, and incomplete. Enforcing nodes did split off, and Roughnecks mined two alternative blocks (961,632 and 961,633) through OCEAN's DATUM at full difficulty before the branch froze, per crypto.news. Our checklist was scoped to the main chain and never contemplated a minority branch minting blocks at 127.48T. The economic conclusion stands — no fee spike, no hashrate exodus, no exchange disruption — but the observation was narrower than the language we used, and that goes in the log. Lesson recorded: define the universe before declaring it quiet.

One more on-chain wrinkle the floor thesis has to absorb: Saturday's retarget, which opened period 477, came in at +0.99% — snapping 2026's string of consecutive difficulty cuts — and the early projection for block 963,648 sits at +3.06% (mempool.space, 10.3% through the window; early estimates are noisy). Hashpower is no longer leaving. Block 963,648 is also BIP-110's lock-in height — the collision we flagged for August 22–23.

H1 closes: NOT FIRED

H1, set on July 28, asked whether Strategy would introduce a new preferred series (“new color”) by August 10. It did not. What the window produced instead: the STRC dividend maintained at 12.00% for periods from August 16 (announced July 31), $81.2 million of STRC repurchases covering 912,143 shares over July 27–August 2 (August 3 8-K), and the Digital Credit Capital Framework carried unchanged. The capital machine is defending existing paper, not printing new colors. H1: NOT FIRED, closed.

Q1 arms today: the fourth-week question

Strategy's weekly 8-K is expected this afternoon — the first full reporting week since the company disclosed selling 1,638 BTC for $104.7 million (July 27–August 2) at a loss to its average basis. Q1 is binary and pre-committed: a further sale of any size confirms policy rather than one-off; a purchase or a quiet week keeps the treasury-management read ambiguous. The tape leans toward drama: Lookonchain flagged wallets it associates with Strategy moving 1,030 BTC (~$66 million) on August 5, news.bitcoin.com reports, and Saylor posted “Doing ₿usiness” on Sunday — the tease that, this year, can no longer be read automatically as a purchase preview. The public ledger still shows 842,138 BTC; the transfer remains unconfirmed as a sale until the filing prints. We grade Q1 tomorrow on the document, not the wallet heuristics.

R2: $101.7M settled, $298.3M to go

R2 requires Farside's settled cells for August 7, 10 and 11 to sum to at least +$400 million. The first cell is now final:

Bitcoin ETF Flow (US$ million) – 2026-08-07 TOTAL NET FLOW: 101.7 | IBIT: 86.7 | FBTC: 41 | BITB: 2.1 | ARKB: 1.9 | BTCO: -19.4 | HODL: -10.6

— Farside Investors (@FarsideUK) August 8, 2026

That leaves $298.3 million needed across Monday and Tuesday combined — a demanding bar. Context cuts both ways: last week's five-session streak absorbed ~$853.5 million (about $170 million per day average), so the pace exists; but Friday's +$101.7 million was the streak's weakest day, and CPI-eve sessions have run cautious all year. IBIT's $86.7 million was 85% of Friday's net — breadth remains thin, with BTCO (−$19.4M) and HODL (−$10.6M) bleeding against the headline. R2 settles Wednesday morning.

R3 and Q2: the oil leg is far, the $65K close is close

R3 (Brent settling above $90 before August 14) is nowhere near firing: Brent traded up about 1% Monday to $84.42 as Iran signaled the Hormuz framework — inbound transits via Iranian waters, outbound via Omani waters, an initial 60-day no-fee period — will not mean an immediate reopening (CNBC). Absent a headline shock, R3 needs a $6 move in four sessions. Q2 — whether BTC breaks the $62–65K band before CPI — is the live one: spot printed a $65,363 high overnight and sits at $65,161. August still has no daily close above $65,000. A close tonight or tomorrow would resolve Q2 upward on the eve of the print that decides September.

The week's calendar, pre-committed

R1's setup for Wednesday: June core CPI printed 0.0% m/m and September pause odds sit near 56% (CNBC). R1 fires only if core comes in at 0.3% or hotter AND hike odds exceed 50% at Thursday's close — both legs, no partial credit. The June print is the bar the shelter component has to clear; a second consecutive soft core likely buries the September-hike case for good.

Carrying forward: the hidden-seller question

One open file from Saturday's issue still needs an answer this week. Last week's arithmetic showed ETF demand absorbing roughly 13,200 BTC against about 2,250 BTC of new issuance — nearly six times the mined supply — while Bitcoin still could not print a single August close above $65,000. Somebody was supplying that gap, and the candidates have narrowed: Strategy disclosed $15 million per day of average selling in its last filing, Lookonchain's 1,030 BTC transfer may extend that, and long-dormant whale movements remain the residual explanation. This week either confirms the hidden seller (flows stay strong, price stays capped) or embarrasses the thesis (flows stay strong, $65K finally closes). Today's 8-K is the first document that can move that file. If Q2 resolves upward tonight while R2's cells fill, the cap was Strategy-shaped; if the cap holds after Strategy reports a quiet week, the seller is someone we have not named yet — and that becomes next week's lead.

Marker board after today

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