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.

🧠 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

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

🤖 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