Morning Minute | Bitcoin Marks New ATH at $106k on Strategic Reserve Hopes

TylerD's Market Summary

💰 Bitcoin Hits $106,000 As Strategic Reserve Hopes Rise

This is a big week.

If the Santa Rally happens, it starts this week.

And Bitcoin may have just given us a glimpse that it's going to happen.

What Happened?

Yesterday, Bitcoin hit a new ATH at $106,000 briefly before pulling back to $104,000.

It also set the highest-ever weekly close.

And many are crediting the recent pump to Donald Trump and his pro-crypto comments, specifically around the Bitcoin reserve.

• Reuters is crediting the recent pump to Trump's comments, pointing to comments from last week where he was asked about the Bitcoin Strategic Reserve and if he would build it and he said "Yeah, I think so."
• Bloomberg is also crediting the pump to Trump and his overall crypto support.
• And new back of the napkin math is showing that a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve could erase 44% of the national debt by 2050 if started in the next year (and if Bitcoin compounds at 25% annually).

The reality of the Strategic Reserve feels more real by the day, and it seems it's being spoken into existence.

What Are They Saying?

Donald Trump's comments from last week: "We're gonna do something great with crypto because we don't want China or anybody else - not just China but others are embracing it - and we want to be the head."

Tony Sycamore, an analyst at IG: "We're in blue sky territory here. The next figure the market will be looking for is $110,000. The pullback that a lot of people were waiting for just didn't happen, because now we've got this news."

Lucas Schweiger, Digital Asset Research Manager at banking group Sygnum: "Campaign promises to make the U.S. ‘the crypto capital of the planet’ might be viewed as political posturing. But the Crypto Advisory Council proposal, along with rumors of Trump meeting several heavyweights of the crypto industry, such as Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, sends a signal that the new administration will pay more serious attention to the crypto market and look to understand its potential opportunities for the US economy."

Why It Matters

It feels like we're beyond political posturing at this stage.

When Trump ended his Bitcoin Nashville speech with "Go have fun with your Bitcoins," it did feel like maybe he was just posturing.

But the actions taken since then, to meet with crypto leaders, to appoint crypto-friendly people to his Cabinet, and his repeated pro-crypto comments feel too big to ignore.

And the upside of a potential Strategic Reserve is simply not priced in right now.

The asymmetric bet is on Bitcoin, and crypto growth in America.

There is a good chance that we are literally just getting started...

🚚 What is happening in NFTs?

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

• Ethereum led NFT trading volume with $57M on the day; Solana was next with $5.7M and then Bitcoin with $4.7M
• ETH NFT leaders were very green; Punks even at 38.5 ETH, Pudgy -5% at 31, BAYC +6% at 19.4 ETH, Azuki +20% at 10.75; Milady +10% at 6, Doodles +8% to 4.5
• Several other NFTs jumped 30-50% including Elementals, Beanz, Sappy Seals, Hegdies, Bond Bears, Mocaverse and Cool Cats
• Pudgy Penguins saw 3 sales at 100 ETH or higher for Ice Pudgy's, 3 of the top 10 sales of all time
• Skyborne Nexian Gems (+160%), On1 Force (+100%), The Plague (+90%) and Rug Genesis NFTs (+80%) led notable top movers
• BTC NFT leaders were mostly red; Bitcoin Puppets -6% at 0.15 BTC, NodeMonkes +1% at 0.14, OMB -3% at 0.146, Quantum Cats -1% at 0.207
• New Fukuhedrons Ordinals debuted and ran to 0.015 BTC (now 0.01)
• The Runes leaders were mostly red; DOG -2% at $940M mc, PUPS -5% at $180M, BDC -6% at $75M, GIZMO +11% at $26M
• Solana NFTs were mixed led by DeGods (+5%), Claynosaurz (+29%) and Mad Lads (+3%)

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

Here's a rundown of major token, protocol and airdrop news from the day:

🌎 Macro Crypto and Web3

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

• Crypto majors are green this morning after closing a new ATH on the Bitcoin weekly; BTC +1% at $104,000, ETH +1% at $3,920, SOL -2% at $215, XRP -2% at $2.37
• HYPE jumped another 20% on the day to $26, closing a +110% move on the week
• Memecoin majors are red and closed a -10%-20% week; DOGE -2% at $0.395, SHIBA -3%, PEPE -1%, WIF -5%, BONK -3%, MOG even
• Trump's recent strategic Bitcoin reserve comments are being credited for Bitcoin's surge over $105k and to new ATH
• Donald Trump's World Liberty Fi continued to buy ETH DeFi tokens including ONDO
• MicroStrategy made it into the Nasdaq 100 pushing the stock up to $411
• Crypto developer activity is soaring in Asia (home to 32% of total dev activity) where devs largely favor Solana over ETH
• PNUT's owner issued a cease-and-desist letter to Binance accusing them of trademark violations (PNUT -4%)

🚀 Memecoin Movers 

• $MIKU (+3,900% to $10M market cap, SOL)
• $SHITCOIN (+1100% to $12M market cap, SOL)
• $MEMESAI (+80% to $70M market cap, SOL)
• $SANUT (+80% to $20M market cap, SOL)
• $MANA (+60% to $23M market cap, SOL)

📈 NFT Floor Price Increase (ETH)

• Shadow Wolves (200%, 0.06 ETH Floor)
• Cool Pets (150%, 0.05 ETH Floor)
• Skyborne (130%, 1.33 ETH)
• SupDucks (114%, 0.06 ETH)
• Rug Genesis (107%, 0.16 ETH)

🗓 Upcoming Mints and Events

Folks - my source for daily mints and events has shut down operations.

Given the general lack of interest in new mints on a daily basis, I'll be discontinuing this section of the newsletter, at least for now.

If I can find a good source for daily events, I will look at turning it back on.

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