‘The Whole World Is a Casino’

Key Takeaways:

• Bitcoin neared $80K as Ki Young Ju flagged a 30% rebound, reviving crypto risk appetite.
• Tether minted $3B and froze record USDT, sharpening the Bitcoin vs. stablecoin split.
• THORChain moved 75,700 ETH in 1.5 days, with DeFi security and privacy debates set to grow.

Week in Review

Bitcoin knocked on the door of $80,000 this week, while Ethereum and the altcoin space bled away again. The S&P 500 retouched all-time highs again, while the Russell 2000 broke record levels in an apparent comeback for risk appetite.

Gold and silver both printed red weekly candles while the dollar index (DXY) traded up slightly at 98.8, but still well below the psychological 100 level.

With the extension of a ceasefire in the Middle East, and a cooling of war and oil-related headlines, an almost foreign-feeling level of calm touched the markets.

And this week, crypto started to feel like crypto again.

Not because everything was clean or healthy. It wasn’t. Hacks kept coming, stablecoins were frozen in size, wrench attacks in France continued, Ethereum took another round of psychological abuse, and “crime tokens” reappeared. And yet, despite all of that, the dominant mood shifted on the back of Bitcoin’s rally.

One of the most compelling stats floating around was the idea that every time Bitcoin has rallied 30% off a low, it has never revisited that low. This cycle’s 30% threshold sits at $79,694, which gives the market a clean psychological line to organize around. Whether or not it holds with mathematical perfection is beside the point. Traders want a reason to believe the floor is in, and now they have one.

At the same time, funding rates turned extremely negative, which historically has often looked more like a bottom signal than the start of a collapse. That’s one of the classic features of a recovering market: positioning gets too bearish just as the underlying asset starts stabilizing. BTC loves catching everyone offside. Cryptoquant CEO Ki Young Ju pointed out that “ Bitcoin tends to be closer to a bottom when it looks least attractive.”

Fidelity’s Jurrien Timmer added to the mood by saying Bitcoin is building a base for its next major wave up. Peter Brandt, a staunch proponent of classical charting, argued that while the low may not come until September or October, the next bull market could still target $300k to $500k.

Jordi Visser appeared on CNBC pumping Bitcoin, noting the decoupling between BTC and software stocks.

The bullish turn in Bitcoin happened against a backdrop of unusual macro signals.

The Treasury just did the biggest buyback of debt on record. Kevin Warsh, likely the next Fed Chair, decided to publicly denounce the negative effects of QE and inflation, though not everyone seems convinced by his positioning. Tom Lee warned that new Fed chairs have often preceded market corrections, and also predicted a rally for the ages after the drawdown completes.

Economist Steve Hanke added another layer by calling for a commodities supercycle, telling investors to pivot away from tech and toward hard assets.

Meanwhile, AI-related stocks now make up a record 45% of the S&P 500, highlighting just how concentrated traditional equity exposure has become. That sort of crowding often makes investors more willing to look elsewhere for asymmetric upside, and Bitcoin remains one of the clearest liquid, scarce alternatives.

One reason bullish sentiment is flowing back into Bitcoin could be that so much of the rest of the crypto ecosystem still looks fragile and risky.

The North Korean KelpDAO exploit has been a major reminder that DeFi remains structurally vulnerable. Aave responded to the hack by freezing markets tied to affected assets, and Arbitrum reportedly managed to claw back tens of millions of dollars, reigniting the age-old decentralization debate.

The Ethereum ecosystem deserves some credit for trying to respond collectively. Stani Kulechov said he is personally contributing 5,000 ETH to relief efforts for rsETH losses, and others are working to formalize additional commitments.

Amid the continued chaos in DeFi, harsher takes are finding traction. Pentoshi declared that the DeFi dream is effectively dead, arguing that users can now get similar yields through traditional brokers without the same existential security risks. You don’t have to fully agree to see why the argument resonates. Crypto promised open finance, but currently, it’s just constant comedic levels of risk, stress, and doubt.

Ansem has been bear posting Ethereum, arguing that holding ETH until 2030 could be one of the worst investment decisions imaginable. That may be a bit extreme, but it captures the current emotional split in the market: Bitcoin is regaining belief, while much of the rest of crypto is still defending itself against disappointment.

Haseeb Qureshi declared North Korea to be crypto’s enemy. He’s not wrong. Lazarus may be the best crypto hackers the world has ever seen. Security expert Taylor Monahan said to pull off the KelpDAO hack, the exploiters ran 1,610 transactions in 11 hours, or 146 transactions in an hour, or 2.4 transactions per minute.

“Yeah. They are unmatched.”

THORChain remained central to that conversation. After being used by the KelpDAO hackers, it was reportedly also being used by the Balancer hacker to move funds from Ethereum into Bitcoin through THORChain rails. The exploiters swapped nearly all of its 75,700 ETH holdings, worth about $175 million, into BTC in just a day and a half.

Mert Mumtaz is hinting at some kind of privacy project, which felt timely. In a week full of cyberattacks, tracking, freezes, and coercion, the privacy narrative looks more legitimate.

Tether had one of the week’s most revealing stretches. On one side of the ledger, Tether minted $3 billion in a single week, with Abraxas Capital receiving almost as much from the Treasury. On the other side, the company is also in the middle of what appears to be the largest-ever USDT freeze.

Bitcoin’s appeal rises when neutrality matters. Stablecoins win when usability and state compatibility matter. This week, both dynamics strengthened at once.

The alt market is still weird. Aside from Bitcoin, the rest of crypto continued doing what it does best: mixing serious capital, tribal loyalty, absurd behavior, and unresolved conversations about value.

The Bittensor crowd kept up its momentum. Algod said he bought more TAO, Barry Silbert was seen with the community at an event, and Jason Calacanis’ podcast featured the co-founder in an interview.

Sam Bankman-Fried emerged on the timeline once again as it becomes increasingly clear that the FTX estate selling his investments near the bottom may have been the greatest fumble of all time, with the portfolio now hypothetically worth $114 billion. Whether that number is right, it is the kind of retrospective that only gains traction when people are already feeling bullish again.

Crypto keeps financializing everything, including nonsense. This week’s best example was the Polymarket incident in Paris, where a trader allegedly went long on hotter weather and then used a hairdryer on an airport thermometer to tilt the result, banking $34,000 in profits. The use case of turning completely innocuous events into financial instruments has emerged as one of crypto’s top use cases.

The CFTC charged a US military service member with insider trading in a Nicolas Maduro-related Polymarket event and profiting $404,000. Bloomberg then reported the White House is watching these sorts of markets for insider trading more closely going forward.

Addressing the rise of prediction markets and the issue of insider trading, President Trump reminded us that “the whole world, unfortunately, has become somewhat of a casino.”