Morning Minute: Crypto Is On A Real Hot Streak

Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. Subscribe to the Morning Minute on Substack.

GM!

Today's top news:

• Crypto majors sell off after big overnight pump; BTC at $120,500
• ETH soars to $4,350 in big weekend run; Punks hit $235k floor
• LayerZero proposes acquisition of Stargate, ZRO pops 28%
• ZORA jumps 30% to $1.3B, up 14x on the month
• Gondi sets new 1/1 lending record with $1M XCOPY loan

🔥 Crypto’s Big Week

The last 10 days have been one of the most bullish stretches in crypto history.

And it feels like the pace is accelerating.

📌 What Happened

Several marquee events have taken place over the past week and half:

• The White House released its Digital Assets report, laying out the administration’s policy blueprint for integrating crypto into U.S. markets
• The SEC introduced ‘Project Crypto,’ aiming to bring all financial markets onchain and provide the regulatory framework to make that happen
• The SEC gave the green light to liquid crypto staking, saying those activities do not represent securities transactions and paving the way for staking ETFs and DeFi growth
• Trump signed the Executive Order for Crypto in 401(k)s, tapping into the $12.5T Retirement Market for digital assets
• The Ripple vs. SEC case finally ended after nearly 5 years of fighting
• Harvard is buying Bitcoin, disclosing a $116.7M position in BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF IBIT in its latest report

All of that - in 10 days.

📈 Market Response

And then there was the price action.

ETH broke $4,300 for the first time, its highest level since December 2021, on the back of 1) huge ETF inflows 2) ETH TreasuryCo’s buying ETH like they’re running out of time and 3) BlackRock saying it has no interest in other crypto ETFs at this time.

There were several other big movers with:

• AERO (+55%) after news Coinbase would bring Base tokens and its DEX to its Base app
• LDO (+50%) and ENA (+30%) on the staking news
• PENDLE (+37%) on the DeFi headlines
• LINK (+35%) and RAY (+32%) on buybacks

It was a good week.

And that doesn’t include Bitcoin which hit $122,400 last night and looks to be gearing up for a new ATH run as soon as this week.

BitcoinBTC · USD

$76,408−2.67%

24H7D1M1YYTD

Sep 8Sep 10Sep 12Sep 13Sep 15

$79.7k$78.4k$77.2k$75.9k

24h HighHigh$79,530

24h LowLow$75,595

VolVol$1.4B

Market projectionsOdds by Myriad

TodayAbove $76,000Above $76k56% chanceThis weekAbove $76,000Above $76k54% chance

Price data by CoinGeckoCoinGeckoMore Bitcoin news and projections →

🧠 Why It Matters

Crypto is having a perfect storm moment right now.

We just got a trifecta of adoption catalysts spanning policy, institutional capital, and market momentum.

• Policy: Trump’s executive orders could shift billions from traditional retirement portfolios into Bitcoin, ETH, and beyond and the SEC is clearly giving broader crypto the green light (and accelerating on its promises)
• Institutions: Harvard’s buy is another signal that the world’s smartest money is quietly accumulating BTC exposure (and that doesn’t account for the Treasury Companies actively piling into BTC, ETH and more)
• Market: ETH’s breakout over $4,300 along with the alt rally, showing the market is moving on these headlines

It’s a very powerful combination and is too big to ignore.

This is truly looking like Crypto’s Golden Run…

🌎 Macro Crypto and Memes

• Crypto majors were very green but selling off this morning; BTC +2% at $120,600, ETH even at $4,200, XRP +1% at $3.23, SOL -1% at $179
• PUMP (+14%), LDO (+11%) and ENA (+8%) led top movers in a big day for alts
• The ETH ETFs saw $461M in net inflows on Friday, their 4th highest ever ($404M for BTC)
• The ETH / BTC ratio flipped green on the year for the first time, up 100% off the bottom of 0.018 on 4/20
• BlackRock said they do not have intention of filing for an XRP or SOL ETF at this time
• Coinbase announced it will bring DEX trading to the Coinbase app, allowing its users to trade millions assets on Base
• Trump's World Liberty Fi is exploring creating a public company to hold its WLFI Fundraising at a $1.5B target
• Bo Hines, the White House crypto council lead, has resigned to move to the private sector

In Corporate Treasuries

• BMNR popped 25% on Friday to $51.43 and a $5.82B market cap
• BNB Network Company has bought $160M of BNB, progressing against its $500M goal
• A mystery institution accumulated ~$950M of ETH in the past week

In Memes

• Memecoin leaders are red on the day; DOGE -1%, Shiba -1%, PEPE -2%, PENGU +1%, BONK +1%, TRUMP -3%, SPX -2%, and FARTCOIN -5%
• CLIPPY (+110%), Tokabu (+75%), SWIF (+60%) and SPARK (+59%) led notable Solana onchain movers
• ZORA jumped 30% yesterday to $1.25B, now up 14x over the past month

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

• The LayerZero Foundation proposed an acquisition of Stargate, offering $0.1675 per token to acquire and integrate Stargate into the ZRO ecosystem and dissolve the Stargate DAO (ZRO +28%)
• Pump Fun regained 70% share in the Launchpad wars, with LetsBonk at 14% and Bags at 10% (PUMP +14%)
• Linea's Etherex DEX hit $100M in TVL, within a few days of the REX TGE
• Infinex released its Season 1 Yap Run winners, with top 5 receiving $15k-$30k

🤖 AI x Crypto

• Overall market cap up 5% to $12.9B, leaders were mixed
• FARTCOIN (-5%), VIRTUAL (+3%), TIBBIR (+8%), ai16z (+3%) & ALCH (+2%)
• SNAI (+50%), AVA (+25%) and arc (+20%) led top movers

🚚 What is happening in NFTs?

• ETH NFT leaders were mostly green over the weekend; Punks +2% at 55 ETH, Pudgy +3% at 15.2 BAYC +4% at 13.2 ETH
• DigiDaigaku (+66%) were a top mover
• The CryptoPunks floor hit $235k after the rise in ETH and a busy weekend of sales
• Bitcoin NFTs mostly chopped
• Abstract NFTs were mostly green, led by Bearish (+12%)
• Gondi set a new NFT lending record with a $1,000,000 loan against the XCOPY 1/1 ‘When Airdrop?”, a new record for a 1/1 digital art piece