🐳 Daily Edition: BTC Volatility Hits 2 Year Low, Coinbase Launching $BASE?

Mirroring similar moves we’ve seen over the last several weeks, the market pulled back over the weekend following its close at a high on Friday, though admittedly the move on Bitcoin was pretty minor. That in itself follows another trend of Bitcoin’s implied volatility dropping drastically for the last year; we’re currently at the same levels as September 2023, during which Bitcoin traded around $26k. While I’m sure we’ll soon see plenty of “KOLs” on X drawing parallels between now and then and proclaiming that means Bitcoin will go up 500% soon, what this really shows us is BTC is maturing as an asset. Many of us got into crypto for the volatility, yet I believe Bitcoin’s value has evolved beyond just something for people to trade. In other words, a store of value or “Digital Gold” by definition cannot be bouncing up and down like an altcoin does. With onchain data showing OG Bitcoiners are selling their coins as ETF buyers continue to accumulate, we’re rotating into a new class of investors that’s looking to park their funds in an asset and wait patiently.

If you were on “Crypto Twitter” at all today, you probably saw one thing dominating mindshare: the possibility of a Base network token. For those unfamiliar, Base is an Ethereum Layer 2 network created by industry titan Coinbase in 2023. Coinbase has maintained that they had no plans to issue a token, and that no airdrop would be coming… until today. At a Coinbase event, Base Lead Jesse Pollak stated Coinbase was “beginning to explore a network token” for Base. For long time Beluga Brief subscribers, you’ll know that since the launch of the chain we have expected this to come. Our reasoning was simple, and I suspect it’s very similar to theirs: based on the current valuation of similar chains (and of course the gold standard exchange token, Binance’s BNB), they could add several billion in assets to their balance sheet overnight just by issuing a token. It’s a publicly traded company at the end of the day, and they have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders to increase the value of their shares. With the Trump administration normalizing Americans and American businesses launching coins, it was only a matter of time until $BASE was announced. For those interested in getting involved in the potential airdrop, we’ll be publishing a full guide on where we think you should be focusing in the coming days!

I am terrified that this might be real

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

• Strategy co-founder Michael Saylor and other crypto execs join lawmakers in Washington to advance strategic bitcoin reserve bill

• Ethereum Foundation forms ‘dAI’ team to make Ethereum a base layer for the AI economy

Alt Coins and Stocks

• Bitcoin fans slam billion-dollar rush for altcoin balance sheets

• Coinbase-linked blockchain is exploring a new cryptocurrency

ETFs

• Bitcoin ETFs drew in $2.3B last week, marking ‘clear demand impulse’

Miscellaneous

• Senate confirms crypto-friendly Stephen Miran to Federal Reserve Board ahead of interest rate meeting

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