CoinDesk Weekly Summary: At Last, the Bitcoin Surge

After several weeks on a plateau, bitcoin saw some action this week, climbing to more than $95,000 at press time. It was up 12% during the workweek, buoyed by positive macro news and a sense that the worst of tariff-related issues may be over. The CoinDesk 20 — which tracks about 80% of crypto market cap — jumped over 10% in the past five days.

In an interview with CoinDesk’s Sam Reynolds, Coinbase Institutional’s John D’Agostino attributed the rally to institutions and sovereign wealth funds accumulating bitcoin. Retail traders, on the other hand, were generally exiting bitcoin ETFs, he noted.

Institutions continued to support bitcoin-accumulation vehicles. On Wednesday, Strike CEO Jack Mallers and Cantor Fitzgerald’s Brandon Lutnick unveiled Twenty One Capital, a new bitcoin investment company backed by Tether, Bitfinex, and SoftBank. Twenty One is set to have the third-largest bitcoin corporate treasury with 42,000 BTC, according to Reynolds and Francisco Rodrigues. There was increasing evidence from the options markets that traders are willing to hold BTC through market fluctuations, which explains why bitcoin remained relatively stable while stocks and bonds declined in recent weeks. CoinDesk’s market wizard Omkar Godbole reported on this development.

Bitcoin became the fifth most-valuable financial asset this week, surpassing Google’s market cap for the first time. Not bad for a protocol that started as a hobby among cypherpunks 20 years ago. In other news, Zora’s much-anticipated token launch experienced a dip on debut. Analysts indicated that traders were fatigued by so-called “VC tokens” with relatively low liquidity. “The $ZORA launch highlights a recurring issue in Web3: overpromising and underdelivering,” noted Min Jung, a research analyst.

However, rising prices for core crypto assets are creating opportunities for diverse Web3 concepts. This week, a popular British TV series launched a blockchain-based video game and Web3 “ecosystem.” Additionally, there was a notable increase in other gaming and cultural-crypto news announcements compared to last year.

If you had to choose two frontrunners in the current market, bitcoin and stablecoins would be top picks (with many more to come). This week, USDC-issuer Circle announced a new global payments and remittances network, and there was news of free conversions between U.S. dollars and PayPal’s PYUSD stablecoin on Coinbase.

While it’s essential to conduct your own research, accumulating bitcoin and utilizing stablecoins may be sound strategies.