🐳 Daily Edition: Middle East Ceasefire Brings BTC Back to $105k

It’s been a crazy 72 hours for crypto and the world, but we’ve come out green on the other side with Bitcoin rising above $105k at time of writing. This comes after we broke under $100k just this morning due to fears of further escalation in the Middle East, which have been assuaged only minutes ago as Trump declares an official ceasefire to come in the next few hours. While it certainly didn’t feel good, it’s pretty incredible to me that despite all the fear in the market over the last few weeks, Bitcoin barely broke under $100k. The same is not true for altcoins, however, as Bitcoin dominance has nearly reached its highs of 2021 which precipitated the major altcoin rally. With many more alts for investors to choose from, however, even if/when we see a massive surge in the alt market it likely won’t happen for every coin like last time.

One non-Bitcoin sector that has been up only is of course that of stablecoins, with Circle hitting a new ATH of $300 today in spite of a wildly volatile market. Its market cap has now eclipsed the total market cap of USDC, and nears that of Coinbase, which it distributes significant revenue to. In other words, we’re in silly valuations and its clear the market is not judging it on these fundamentals. Rather, this run is likely due to the fact that it’s the only direct stablecoin exposure most investors can attain in the market. Even though USDC's business is significantly smaller than Tether’s USDT, you can’t buy Tether stock, and so all the capital flows to Circle.

In other news, ETF issuer VanEck co-hosted today’s Nasdaq bell ringing ceremony along with the team behind crypto-culture project Pudgy Penguins in a historic “Web3 takeover” of the stock exchange. With several successful crypto companies now trading on the Nasdaq and Bitcoin continually ranking at the top of ETF flows, it seems crypto has trojan horsed its way into the mainstream. That is for trading at least, which is mostly what we’re good at anyway. Slowly, then all at once.

I know we’re all thankful this conflict has finally ended, Litecoin has disparaged Solana for too long.

The Beluga intern has been hard at work gathering all the most important crypto news stories so you have them in one place!

The Majors

• Bitcoin shakes off market chaos as traders pile into even riskier assets

Alt Coins and Stocks

• Midnight Network plots NIGHT airdrop for users of Bitcoin, Ethereum, Cardano and beyond

• Circle stock in up only mode even as Bitcoin, crypto market struggle—Why?

Regulatory

• Federal Reserve removes ‘reputational risk’ from bank examinations in a ‘win’ against crypto debanking

• Senator introduces bill to halt Trump’s crypto activity—but voted to allow it last week

Random

• Trump Media’s $400 million stock repurchase plan will not alter its multi-billion Bitcoin treasury designs

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