After three consecutive newsletters warning you Bitcoin had bottomed, we finally feel vindicated after Bitcoin’s 22% pop last week.
This week, we chatted with CryptoQuant founder Ki Young Ju about what comes next — and why waiting for a pullback might be a mistake if you missed the run.
I walked through many of these reasons recently on YahooFinance last week, but as Ki echoes in our discussion this week, this is a very strong set up for the weeks ahead.
“I think the rally is going to continue,” Ki told us, pointing to the strongest combined showing in spot and futures momentum since Bitcoin’s prior high last October. “I’ll say as a trader, I think it’s considered as the start point of the bull run.”
We won’t re-post all the charts that Ki walked us through on the episode above, but we will point out that on Monday we got our answer to one of the lingering questions about the rally. Was Saylor behind the pump again? Interestingly, the answer was not at all.
Strategy filed their 8-K and revealed that the company sold another $2 billion in MSTR shares, while buying back $136 million worth of their perpetual STRC shares. Those traded as high as $97 on Monday — which is the closest they’ve traded to their $100 par value since the largest public holder of Bitcoin started selling.
Importantly, the company showed discipline by not yeeting the proceeds into buying the Bitcoin rally, and revealed that its cash pile is now north of $5 billion. The next ex-dividend date is in a week. If STRC manages to reclaim $100, it’ll be interesting to see if Strategy once again returns to enjoying having its two-prong funding levers turn back on — and how long the company goes before deploying again.
The Alchemy of 5% 10%?
Meanwhile, things are getting even more interesting on the Ethereum side of the crypto headlines. Not only did Ethereum see a giant 20% daily candle last week — but even some of the largest names in Bitcoin are starting to give it the credit it deserves.
Coinage was a media partner at the SALT Wyoming Blockchain Symposium last week, and we sat down with Custodia Bank founder Caitlin Long. Long is famed for a career on Wall Street, and for her enthusiastic debates about the inner-workings of bringing the US banking system onchain.
She’s one of the smartest minds in crypto and banking that I’ve ever met — and most know her as a big Bitcoin fan. But, as Custodia experiments with regulated stablecoin payments, her bank is doing so on Ethereum. And, as she tells us, it’s not just her:
“Tom Lee is, for example, one of the famous Ethereum bulls and his theory is big institutions when they tokenize are going to pick Ethereum and a lot of that is coming true.”
For his part, Bitmine Chair Tom Lee has been coming up on his stated “Alchemy of 5%” goal (which really is just owning 5% of Ethereum’s total supply.)
His company bought up another $80 million worth of ETH this past week and is now very close to his goal at 4.8%. On a podcast this week, he mentioned it could be worth revisiting increasing his goal of targeting 5% come 2027 — and could accelerate that goal if the CLARITY Act passes.
Last year, Lee told me that it could make sense to target 10%.
Trump’s Top Crypto Advisor on CLARITY
On the topic of CLARITY, we caught up with Patrick Witt, President Trump’s Council of Advisors Executive Director on Digital Assets. He said he remains as bullish as he’s ever been on CLARITY clearing the Senate vote scheduled for September.
“I have been cautiously optimistic throughout this process,” he tells us. “I would say I’m as bullish, as optimistic as I’ve been throughout, which might be somewhat surprising.”
He also reiterated that the SEC and CFTC continue to push pro-crypto rules across the board.
Case in point came last week, when President Trump emphasized that CFTC Chair Mike Selig is working on bringing offshore perpetual futures exchange Hyperliquid into the fold here in the US. HYPE popped off the news to hit a new all-time high yesterday at $83.
Coming up this week… our interview with David Schamis, the CEO of the largest HYPE digital treasury company, Hyperliquid Strategies. PURR 0.00%↑ is up more than 200% this year — with 50% being added just last week. (Side note, Mr. Schamis was on the flight back from Wyoming with us the day HYPE was up 20% and let’s just say that man was beaming!)
What to Watch
All eyes will be on NVDA 0.00%↑ as the chip giant reports earnings on Wednesday. The company’s stock suffered a seventh straight losing session today to notch its longest losing streak since September 2022.
Wednesday will also bring the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, the PCE price index’s latest print. Expect the read to filter into rate expectations for September.
The University of Michigan’s consumer survey on inflation expectations will round out the week on Friday.
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