Bankless|10. Juli
War Is Back. Saylor Sold. Bitcoin Went Up Anyway?
📉 Geopolitics & Markets: Iran Ceasefire Over? 🛢️
- The US conducted two major airstrikes on July 8th and 9th, hitting 170 military sites in Iran, in retaliation for attacks on commercial vessels.
- Trump declared the ceasefire over, but markets reacted mildly: oil prices (WTI) rose only 5% to $71.
- Markets seem to largely ignore geopolitical tensions, with NASDAQ and S&P 500 closing green.
- Michael Saylor (MicroStrategy) sold 3,588 Bitcoin (approx. $216 million) – significantly more than the previous 32 BTC.
- Despite the sale, Bitcoin rose 3% to $63,000, suggesting market strength.
- The sale was categorized as “Cover the Preferreds” (to pay dividends), not as a reserve build. Three sale categories exist: reserve build, preferred coverage, and share buybacks.
- Analysts see this as an orderly unwinding, reducing uncertainty. The probability that $57,500 was the bottom is estimated at 60%.
- The Robin Hood Chain launched with a meme coin hype, especially Cash Cat, which surged to a $180 million market cap.
- Bridges temporarily ran out of ETH liquidity due to high demand.
- Over 200,000 wallets were created, with $500 million in Uniswap trading volume in 24 hours (roughly a third of Solana’s DEX volume).
- Tokenized stocks (RWA) currently hold only $13 million in assets, as the service is limited to Europe.
- Vitalik Buterin published an updated Ethereum roadmap (“Straw Map”) with concrete dates and hard fork targets through 2029.
- Four North Stars define the vision: fast L1, terra-gas L2 (1 GB/s), gigas L1, and private L1.
- New priorities: Formal verification (enabling faster development via a single-client approach), quantum resistance (moved up to 2028), and privacy pools (Zcash-like functionality on L1).
- The roadmap is interpreted as Ethereum 3.0 – optimizing ETH as a store of value and censorship resistance, not as a “world computer.”
- JP Morgan launched a $700 million money market fund (JLTXX) on Ethereum L1, investing in US Treasuries and repos.
- The fund is for institutional investors (minimum $1 million) and shows Ethereum’s role for certain RWA use cases (e.g., slow, secure vaults).
- However, other issuers like Securitize use Solana and Avalanche for tokenized equities due to faster block times and better compliance features.
- David’s Portfolio (since May): Zcash (-20%), Hype (+56%), VVV (-20%), Near (+25%), LIT (+80%).
- Ryan’s Outlook: He is waiting for a clear bottom signal and believes the bottom has not yet been reached. He is monitoring projects like Pump Fun (strong fee revenue) and LIT.
- Paradigm raised $1.2 billion for a fund now also investing in AI and robotics – a sign of the end of pure crypto VCs.
- The episode ends with a look at a futuristic robotic hand perfectly mimicking human finger movements – a symbol of rapid technological advancement.
