Morning Minute | BlackRock Keeps Buying Bitcoin

TylerD's Market Summary

📈 BTC ETF Inflows Hit 6-Week High

On Monday, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink shared his bull case for Bitcoin and crypto.

He called Bitcoin "digital gold" and laid out the investment thesis in a concise thesis on CNBC.

Well, it looks like the sales pitch worked.

What Happened?

Yesterday, BTC ETF inflows hit a 6-week high of $423M.

That included a whopping $260M (4,000+ BTC) from BlackRock's IBIT fund alone.

This brings their overall BTC holdings to 322,125 ($20.9B).

The fund has been active for 6 months.

They've absorbed the equivalent of the German Government ($6B) + Mt Gox BTC reserves ($9B) + 30% more in 6 months of buying - by themselves.

BlackRock's size is real size.

Why It Matters

Any doubts around the impact of the BTC ETF have been fully erased.

They are buying, and in size.

Arguably more important - the messaging and signal from Larry Fink (covered in yesterday's newsletter).

Him doing the media tour and touting crypto makes it easier for thousands of bankers and portfolio managers around the US (and the world) to give the pitch themselves.

Oh, and there's another ETF launching next week for ETH.

If it even gets 25% of the inflows that BTC has seen, we're talking $4B-$5B of buy pressure from BlackRock alone.

The crypto majors are all going so much higher...

🚚 What else is happening in NFTs?

Here is the list of other notable headlines from the day in NFTs:

• Ethereum led NFT trading volume with $5.3M (+10%) on the day; SOL was next with $3.4M (+20%), and then BTC with $2.5M
• ETH NFT leaders were red on the day; Pudgy -1% at 10.5 ETH, Milady -3% to 5, MAYC -3% to 1.6 and BAYC -2% to 9.3
• Valhalla and Skyborne Genesis were notable top movers on the day, jumping 30% each
• BTC NFT leaders were mixed; NodeMonkes -1% at 0.184 BTC, Puppets -1% at 0.142 BTC, OMB +6% at 0.227 and Quantum Cats +4% at 0.3; OCM Genesis led +33% to 0.04
• The Runes leaders were very red after a recent rally; DOG -5% at $474M mc, RSIC -1% at $90M mc, PUPS -25% at $48M, BILLY -2% to $44M
• Bold Leonidas announced mint details for his Boldinals collection coming next Monday July 22, priced at 0.01 BTC for 100 supply (WL only) minting on Magic Eden
• Solana NFTs were slightly green; Mad Lads +1% at 69 SOL, SMB Gen 2 even at 30, DeGods even at 18, Tensorians -3% at 12
• Doodles debuted the first trailer for their upcoming "Dullsville and the Doodleverse" short film, featuring several community members
• Grant Yun selected 60 of his top Deca holders to be eligible for his upcoming "An Old Soul" mint
• Chimpers launched a new plushie toy with Youtooz
• Coinbase posted a cryptic cat video, then followed it up with "Meow" NFT mint link (and a description reading "come back on 7.17.24"

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

Here's a rundown of major token or airdrop news from the day:

🌎 Around Crypto and Web3

A few other Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:

• Crypto majors are green this morning; BTC +1.5% at $64,700; ETH +1% at $3,450, SOL +2% at $161
• Memecoin majors chopped after a huge day with DOGE +1%, PEPE -1%, WIF -1%, BONK +4%, MOG +7%; mini, FIGHT, BODEN outperformed
• Worldcoin jumped 40% on the day after the team extended 80% of their token unlocks by 3-5 years
• Nate Silver joined Polymarket as an advisor, bringing his expertise from years of election modeling to the leading prediction market
• Bored Elon's Edison Metaverse raised $2.2M in an angel round in partnership with Improbable with the goal "to accelerate the development of the metaverse"
• DeepNewz app went live on the iOS app store, providing breaking and personalized news written by AI (from founder Nikolai Yakovenko known in crypto for his deepnftvalue bot)

🚀 Memecoin Movers 

• $mini (+200%, $10M market cap, SOL)
• $FIGHT (+60%, $60M market cap, ETH)
• $BODEN (+50%, $30M market cap, SOL)
• $nub (+47%, $26M market cap, SOL)
• $AURA (+37%, $33M market cap, SOL) 

📈 NFT Floor Price Increase (ETH)

• Valhalla (33%, 0.11 ETH Floor)
• Skyborne (32%, 0.03 ETH)
• Mavia Lands (25%, 0.15 ETH)
• Themes and Variations (24%, 2.43 ETH)
• HV-MTL (16%, 0.04 ETH)

🗓 Upcoming Mints and Events

Today is a slower day of mints mostly focused in the art sector.

Lazaro is the meme card artist and Foundation is kicking off its "Art Market Exlusive Launchin" featuring 45 artists today.

See the full list and dive in for more details with Swizzy's daily mint monitor. 

• fakewhale x Foundation (10:00 a.m. ET)
• Memes by 6529 (11:00 a.m. ET)
• Pop Collective - T206 Series (11:00 a.m. ET)
• Sealana (12:00 p.m. ET)

Enjoy this write-up and/or want to sponsor the Morning Minute? Follow along with me on Twitter @tyler_did_it or reach out via email to tyler.warner@luckytrader.com.