Todays Top Stories

Editor: @PhoenixxDown

7 Reasons to Be Cheerful!

Hello and welcome to “Black Monday.”

This morning, after giving thanks for waking up to another day in this life, it was time to open up X and see how everyone was doing on there.

NOT SO WELL, it turns out. Not so well, AT ALL.

If X had a Fear and Greed rating, we’d be at maybe a 3. It’s enough to make you go touch grass, which is excellent advice alone, but wouldn’t make for much of a newsletter if we left it there.

So, to help neutralize the spiritual damage X might be causing you today, here are 7 reasons to be cheerful:

Trump’s Strategic Bitcoin Reserve

Easy to forget, momentarily, thanks to Trump stealing headlines for a whole host of other reasons lately, but back in March he signed an executive order to create a U.S. Strategic Bitcoin Reserve with 200,000 BTC.

That same order also directed officials to explore budget-neutral Bitcoin acquisitions, meaning they may be planning to buy, not just sit on seized BTC. And don't forget, WLFI, the DeFi platform associated with Trump, has been buying alts all the way down.

Unless you believe they’re torching money for fun, there’s a genuine financial interest in pushing prices back up eventually.

Ordinals Boost Miner Revenue

Since 2023, Ordinals and Runes have contributed roughly $1 billion in miner fees, or 9735 BTC. With the mempool now back to pre-Ordinals levels, you’d have to think miners are missing that sweet payday we were giving them. There’s every incentive for them to back our cartoon pictures.

Bitcoin’s Hashrate Hits 1 Zetahash

The Bitcoin network recently hit 1 Zetahash per second, which is absolutely insane. It signals the highest level of mining power and security we’ve ever seen, and it happened 15 years earlier than River Financial had projected.

Extended KYC Deadline for FTX Claims

Nearly 400,000 FTX users caught a break; the KYC deadline has been extended to June 1, 2025. That potentially unlocks $2.5 billion in crypto repayments, which is OBVIOUSLY all going straight into Runes.

Bitcoin DeFi is Coming

Starknet’s plan to become Bitcoin’s execution layer in 2025, originally laid out in March, is a big one. It could unlock scalable DeFi and smart contract applications on Bitcoin, pushing BTC into use cases it’s never had before.

Additionally, we have Build on Bitcoin, BitcoinOS, SUI, ICP, BLIFE, TAP, and many others all with their own offerings. Interesting things happening, and you’re probably well positioned if you’re reading this. Well done.

Wall Street Eyes Q2 Rally

Mid-March analysts started predicting a Q2 Bitcoin rally, backed by historical patterns tied to global liquidity. The chart tell the story here, the only question is will it play out as expected?

Ordinals Are Far From Dead

Casey Rodarmor’s upcoming update to the Ordinals Protocol will introduce “Agent mode” which hints at automated market makers for Runes. There’s a lot of work to be done still and as Casey pointed out in a follow up, they are not a final fix to the many issues being faced, but it’s going to be a very exciting upgrade.

Finally, as a bonus, here’s a general overview of where we are in comparison to one of the worst events that had a similar feeling to it. Except, nothing about this is actually similar if you tune the noise out.

There is plenty to be delighted about today.

Top Posts | ORD 0.23.1 has dropped:

Top Posts | “Your portfolio peak or all-time high net worth isn't real.” - An article by @CryptoCred

Top Posts | OdinFun is dominating Phantom Wallet’s charts:

Top Posts | CZ is now a crypto strategic advisor to Pakistan:

Top Posts | Today in the Trenches: A fake news story wiped $2T off the S&P500 in 10 minutes:

Daily Bites: Today’s Top Articles

Todays Markets

Ordinals

Ordinals in general have taken another battering, with OMB now teetering just above mint price (for Black Eyes), and other Orange Chips registering double-digit % losses once again.

A bit of a reprieve, however, for Quantum Cats who only dropped a little under 1%, suggesting perhaps most of the sellers there are finally exhausted.

In the bottom half, Runestone tends to perform well on red days, and today is no different with a tidy 19.5% gain.

Runes (Bitcoin Memecoins)

It’s also been a rough one over on OG Runes, with $DOG dropping dangerously close to the $100m market cap mark.

At these levels, you’re either filled with fear… or seeing a golden opportunity to load up, if you’ve got any dry powder left, that is!

$LIQ is up 4%, and when stacked against utility tokens on other chains, it’s looking like a steal in that context (not financial advice, obviously.)

Speaking of which, $RUNI enters at 10th. This is a Rune backed by BTCTerminal, an infrastructure provider building for the Bitcoin ecosystem. You can read more about it here:

Normally, OdinFun is the saving grace on days like today. But alas, even the top tokens over there have felt the ripple effects of the fear spreading across the market.

OdinDog is down 7%, though still holding relatively firm with a $9.6m market cap. OdinGold, after its recent run-up, takes a hefty 30% hit.

The biggest gainer is Odinstas, and it only needed to be up 2% to take the crown. Rough times out here.

Quite a number of “utility” tokens have launched on OdinFun lately, only to rug quite soon after. Thus be cautious with this, as this commentor warns:

Todays Opportunities

Giveaways

There are currently no raffles taking place today, but check back tomorrow for what’s next so you don’t miss out.