Bitcoin and crypto investors received a lot of good news this week, even though the market still can’t manage to break free from its highs three months ago.
On Tuesday, the US Bitcoin spot ETFs absorbed net inflows of $887 million—the second-best daily performance for the ETFs to date. Theprice of Bitcoin surged above $71,000 in the process, reaching its highest price since March.
That performance was followed by not one, but two high-profile Bitcoin ETF sponsors assuring investors that a second, much larger wave of institutions was coming to buy Bitcoin through the funds. Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan wrote in a memo that crypto regulatory progress on Capitol Hill was untapped “alpha” for investors, while Franklin Templeton CEO Jenny Johnson said the ETFs had only been touched by their “first wave of the early adopters.”
JUST IN: Franklin Templeton CEO on #Bitcoin ETF adoption says “This is really the first wave of the early adopters.
And at least in the memecoin world, the bull market appeared to be back in full swing. Bitcoin’s very first BRC-20 token, ORDI, surged by over 30% to $60 as of Friday, while PUPS and Bitcoin Wizards (WZRD) more than doubled in value intraweek, according to CoinGecko data.
Other more popular memecoins like PEPE, BONK, and SHIB weren’t as lucky, all posting losses this week.
The Solana-based meme coin GME seriously spiked, blasting up 467% at its height this week, building on the momentum of its stock market namesake Gamestop (GME). Meme influencer Roaring Kitty—who sparked the Wall Street-confounding GameStop movement back in 2021—gave the stock a second wind with his surprise returns to both YouTube and live streaming, with his net worth briefly edging toward $1 billion—before a Friday cold shower from the game retailer.
The meme stock influencer Keith Gill, better known online as Roaring Kitty or DeepFucking Value, opined on YouTube—carefully—on Friday about GameStop’s future as a company. It was his first livestream since 2021.
“Do I have to be careful about what I say here?” the influencer asked, while displaying a background of GameStop’s stock price on Yahoo Finance. “I wanted to remind people that I’m the one active on my accounts, of course.”
The announcement of his livestream a day before had caused the...
Performance-wise, between Bitcoin and meme coins is Ethereum, which kept pace with Bitcoin’s gains this week as its progressed toward a spot ETF launch. VanEck analysts posted a lengthy report arguing that ETH will reach $22,000 per unit by 2030, after sucking away financial market share from Apple, Google, and big banks.
Finally, with both the Bank of Canada and European Central Bank lowering interest rates this week, BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes told followers that it was officially time to start apeing into Bitcoin and shitcoins.
Yet his call may have been a tad premature: at the end the week, a liquidation cascade on Friday sent Bitcoin crashing from $71,000 to $68,000, and ETH down from $3,800 to $3,600. Meanwhile, GME—both the stock and the memecoin—cratered by over 35% each.
Roaring Kitty is the greatest business communicator since Steve Jobs.
Dude shows up 30 minutes to the livestream. Builds the tension up to 11. Shows up on the livestream in a fake bandage and cast.
Illustration by Mitchell Preffer for Decrypt.
Is Bitcoin back? For at least a little while, it feels like it may be.
This time last week, it was trading for $53,229. It’s now trading above $60,000, according to CoinGecko. That’s a 12% rise over seven days, and a threshold unseen since last month.
The price rise came as traders grew more confident that the Fed would slash interest rates by 50 basis points instead of 25. All eyes are on the central bank next week after two years of sky-high inter...
Illustration by Mitchell Preffer for Decrypt.
There's depressing news for those hoping the price of crypto markets would improve this week. Depressing news for nearly all investors, it would seem.
Bitcoin continued to drop, and hard, this week. Over the past seven days, the price of the asset has descended by more than 9% and—after dipping as low as $52,690 on Friday—rolled into the weekend trading hands for $53,229, according to CoinGecko.
That’s significantly lower than its 2021 record of $...
Illustration by Mitchell Preffer for Decrypt.
It was a fairly uneventful week in the crypto world... until Friday.
The action-packed end to the week came with an increase in the price of Bitcoin, buoyed by crypto market optimism after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell gave his strongest signal yet that he will slash interest rates come September.
The price of the asset popped above $64,600, according to CoinGecko, a more than 7% rise over the week. It slid into the weekend at $63,500. Still,...
