BTC Falls Below $60K Again

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In Today's Note

• Risk-off sentiment persisted, with Bitcoin falling below $60K for the third time this month — as low as $59K before recovering above $61K — while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 extended their losing streak into a third session.

• Micron’s blowout earnings re-ignited the AI trade, with fiscal Q3 revenue of $42B (versus $36B estimated) and a stronger-than-expected Q4 forecast sending its shares up as much as 17% in premarket trading and Nasdaq-100 futures more than 2% higher.

• Falling oil reshaped Fed expectations, with Brent back at its pre-war $72 as markets pared their rate-hike bets, while Trump called Strait of Hormuz transit tolls a “red line”; separately, Polymarket was integrated into Telegram via the TON network.

Market Snapshot: Overnight Moves

Macro & Markets

• As we have seen since the beginning of the week, sentiment across risk-on assets remains under pressure. 
• Both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 extended their losing streak into a third consecutive session, declining 0.10% and 0.43%, respectively — though that was a smaller selloff than seen earlier in the week.  
• The two indices recovered most of their intraday losses heading into the close, over speculation that Micron Technology Inc., the largest US maker of computer memory chips, would deliver a strong earnings report. 
• Bitcoin however continued its aggressive slide lower, falling below $60K for the third time this month. 
• BTC fell as low as $59K yesterday evening, before slowly making a recovery back above $61K. 

• In after-hours trading, Micron’s quarterly sales forecast exceeded estimates on Wall Street, driving shares of the chipmaker as much as 17% higher in premarket trading. 
• According to the company, revenue more than quadrupled in the fiscal third quarter, coming in at $42B versus an estimated $36B. 
• Additionally, revenue will be approximately $50B in the fiscal fourth quarter, against estimates of $43B. 
• That helped re-ignite investor confidence in the artificial intelligence trade, a trade that has partly been responsible for the rally in US equities from the war-time lows reached at the end of March. 
• Futures contracts for the Nasdaq-100 advanced more than 2% on the news. 

• Oil prices continued to fall lower, with Brent crude now settling at $72 per barrel, back to its pre-war level. 
• The slide in oil prices has caused markets to reassess their wagers on the extent to which the Fed may cut rates over the coming year. Fed funds futures fully priced in two rate hikes by the middle of 2027 following Kevin Warsh’s first FOMC meeting last week, though now price in 40bps of tightening.

• On the geopolitical front, President Trump said that placing tolls on ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz would be a red line issue for the US, as Washington continues to seek a “fair agreement” with Tehran. 
• Asked if he would reject a final peace deal with Iran if it included any service or shipping fees in the strait, Trump responded, "It would be unacceptable to me, because we have numerous strengths, and if you did that for them, you'd have to do it for other people. It would be a game changer."
• Trump’s response follows comments made last week by Iran that ships would need its permission to cross the waterway and would require a mandatory insurance policy. For now however, that policy is free. 
• Secretary of State Marco Rubio affirmed a similar message by Trump stating, "I know of no country on the planet that supports tolling or a fee for the use of the straits. That's not going to happen."

DeFi / Web3 / Altcoins / Crypto3

• Leveraging the TON network, Polymarket has been integrated into Telegram, allowing users to directly access prediction markets for various events within the Telegram app. 
• Transactions on the platform can be funded using USDT on TON, with GRAM (formerly known as Toncoin) used for gas fees. 
• STON.fi's Omniston protocol will act as a “cross-chain execution layer” helping users with bridging assets onto the TON network.

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