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Millions of BTC
The US government maintains four official reserve assets. Why not bitcoin?
Gold is the most valuable metal. Or, more precisely, gold certificates. US certificates in dollars are currently held by the US for almost 261.5 million fine troy-ounces of gold.
The Fed values these certificates at 42.22 per ounce. This is a price that it has maintained by law since 1973. The gold certificate value is $608.35 billion, as the price of gold has risen to nearly $2400.
Also, there are $166.21 Billion in claims on Special Drawing Rights (SDR), an asset held by the International Monetary Fund.
SDR is an international liquidity pool that, according to the most recent figures, was worth $943 Billion. It’s a liquid fund from which any country can withdraw. The SDR is a basket of currencies, including the US Dollar, Euro, Chinese Renminbi (renminbi), Yen, and Sterling.
US reserves contain an additional $35.2 billion of foreign currency in euro and yen. An extra $29.6 billion can also be withdrawn at short notice from the IMF (apart from the SDR pool).
US reserves are made up of other valuable things, such as oil (374.4 millions barrels worth $29.9 billion) But oil isn’t an official reserve like gold and foreign currency.
To boost Treasury funds, the US Treasury will purchase one million BTCs ($67.7billion) in five years if Senator Cynthia Lummis has her way. The US government manages a strategic bitcoin reserve.
Donald Trump floated another plan to stop the US selling more of its bitcoin seized at Bitcoin2024 in Nashville. He would prefer the US to hold its remaining 213,240 BTC (14,85 billion dollars) which authorities seized in a variety criminal cases such as Silk Road and Bitfinex.
Lummis has said that she will introduce a bill in Congress to create an official strategic reserve, but Trump did not go as far.
If the US began to consider bitcoin an official reserve asset — which sadly feels unlikely — then it would contribute 1.74% of the US’s total official reserves at current prices ($14.85 billion out of $854.3 billion).
What would US reserves actually look like if Lummis is successful?
This is because it requires predicting bitcoin’s price. You can run her strategy over the last five years.
If Lummis had started his plan five years ago to purchase one million BTC, and continued buying the same amount each month, the US would have now accumulated $69.44 billion worth of bitcoins, including the criminal stash.
What’s really shocking is how much the US would have spent “only” $31.4 billion to acquire one million BTC — which works out to be 120% unrealized profit.
Even then, it would take some luck on the market. Lummis may be onto something.
— David Canellis
Data Center
- Bitcoin forks BCH You can also find out more about the following: BSV Today, 16.6% and 15% each are the fastest-rising.
- TIA You can also find out more about the following: CORE They have not yet started their own legs, and they are down 22% to 14% from the previous week.
- Bitcoin open Interest Rates The amount spent on CEXs has reached a record high of $39.69 billion. This is a significant increase over the previous record set at the end March of $39.03billion.
- The monthly DEX volume is set at Top May and JuneThere are three days remaining (including Monday) and the current figure is $173.72billion.
- Weekly Polygon NFT The volume of the book The value of Ethereum has increased 77% from $31.5 million to $15.9billion.
Can you take me up?
At the time of publication, we’re just under $70,000. This is a high that hasn’t been seen yet this summer.
While I’m specifically talking about bitcoin, SOL and ETH have both gained over 3% in the past 24 hours. Even bitcoin cash — which has experienced some volatility following the Mt. Gox repayments — is up in the past 24 hours, though it’s still down in the last year compared to the rest of the market.
Bulls are now in control. Or so it appears.
There are some important levels to keep an eye on as bitcoin hovers at $70,000. It’s possible that if it breaks above $72,000 it will have broken through the consolidation phase and may reach new highs.
As we are all well aware, a large part of the recent success can be attributed in part to Donald Trump’s weekend speech at Bitcoin 2024. Casey Wagner, our very own Casey Wagner, has broken down the key points of his almost hour-long speech in case you missed it.
On the Democratic side of things, a group lawmakers urged presidential hopeful Kamala to adopt a pro-crypto position.
ETC Group’s Cryptoasset Sentiment Index, published in a report after this weekend’s event, shows a bullish market sentiment. However, the market is not yet at euphoric level.
“Last week, there were significant reversals in the BTC one-month implied volatility and BTC perpetual funding rate which tend to be bullish signals,” Analysts wrote: Altcoins also struggle to beat bitcoin at the moment.
“Increasing (decreasing) altcoin outperformance tends to be a sign of increasing (decreasing) risk appetite within cryptoasset markets and the latest altcoin underperformance is a signal of decreasing appetite for risk at the moment,” They continued.
There are, however, some other positive indicators, including the Michigan Retirement System’s allocation of roughly 5% towards bitcoin ETFs.
“The confluence of Trump’s unexpected support, favorable macroeconomic
conditions, increased institutional interest, and strategic decisions by major industry players
creates a compelling case for Bitcoin’s bullish trajectory,” Shubh Varam, from HyBlock capital, wrote this morning in a note to the market.
“While market dynamics can shift rapidly, the current setup suggests that bitcoin may be on the verge of a significant upward move, potentially breaking new ground and reinforcing its status as a leading alternative asset.”
CoinShares’ fund flow report also includes a mention of CoinShares. “renewed investors confidence” Month-to-date, bitcoin ETFs received $3.6 billion in inflows.
The Fear & Greed Index from Glassnode shows that markets are still greedy, a change from the fear reading last month.
Other bullish indicators are also worth watching.
BRN analysts note that one of these is the Hash Ribbon Signal, which is “a long-term bullish indicator highlighting the end of miner capitulation and the increase of the processing power used to mine bitcoin,” The case for a higher position is compelling.
— Katherine Ross
The Works
- Cantor Fitzgerald The company announced that it would launch a bitcoin-financing business with an initial $2 billion financing.
- The Vice Presidential campaign Kamala Harris Looking for a “reset” The Financial Times reported that crypto firms have relationships with the Financial Times.
- Grayscale Bitcoin Mini Trust has received approval by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
- It is important to note that the word “you” means “you”. ETF CoinShares stated that CoinShares launched saw $2.2 billion in inflows which were offset by outflows.
- Slovenia CoinDesk said that it was the first nation in Europe to have issued a sovereign-digital bond.
The Riff
Q: Was Trump’s Bitcoin 2024 speech the defining moment in crypto this cycle or not?
It’s a catalyst, as I said above. I think we’re in such uncharted territory that you could argue it’s a momentous moment — especially if he acts on the action items he laid out in his speech — but I don’t think Trump is alone in notching “defining moments” This cycle.
We’ve discussed institutional support so much, and I believe that it is now defining itself. In that regard, we have both the ETH ETFs as well as bitcoin ETFs. The ETH ETFs have not yet recovered from the initial jitters. However, I would argue that the two crypto ETFs’ legitimacy has been a big win for cryptocurrency.
Money is a powerful tool, don’t you think? Bitcoin ETFs are yapping more than any politician this year.
You have Polymarket. And I haven’t even touched on DeFi…
I’d like to point out that the crypto-landscape is being pushed forward by a number of other factors besides Trump.
— Katherine Ross
First, I’d like to give a shout out to whoever was responsible for educating the Trump campaign on bitcoin before his Nashville speech. They should be given a raise.
If I were to choose one moment that defined crypto since the markets began to recover in November 2022 I would have to agree with Katherine and say Larry Fink’s appearance on CNBC back in January.
BlackRock’s CEO, like Trump, hit all the right chords, not only for bitcoin, but also for the overall value proposition of crypto. “It’s [bitcoin] no different than gold… an asset class that protects you.”
“[Bitcoin] ETFs are step one in the technological revolution in the financial markets. Step two is going to be the tokenization of every financial asset … This eliminates all corruption, having a tokenized system.”
It’s just icing to the cake that we hear similar soundbites in the same cycle from Trump.
— David Canellis
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