“If Bitcoin’s not going to zero, it’s going to a $1 million”

Daily Updates:

• According to the US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, the US and China have reached a preliminary agreement to ease trade tensions following their second round of negotiations that took place in London. 
• Negotiators from both sides have agreed on “a framework on trade” for how to implement the consensus the parties reached in their first round of negotiations in Geneva back in May. 
• Lutnick told reporters in London that the delegations from each side will now take the proposal back to their leaders and “Once the presidents approve it, we will then seek to implement it”. 

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• The initial market reaction so far has been a cautious one — US equity futures are down -0.33%. Foreign equities have performed better — Japan's Nikkei added 0.5% and China’s CSI 300 is up 0.8%.
• US equities ended yesterday’s session higher however, putting the S&P 500 Index within 2% of its ATH and up more than 20% from its April 8 lows following Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs. 
• US treasuries were little changed as traders await May’s CPI report which is expected to show a slightly faster rate of inflation compared to April, with the core YoY CPI projected to rise to its highest all year at 2.9%. 

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• Strategy’s Michael Saylor told Bloomberg yesterday that “Winter is not coming back” — a reference to the crypto lull that has often occurred in the winter periods of past crypto cycles. Saylor said “We’re past that phase. If Bitcoin’s not going to zero, it’s going to $1 million and you have all the evidence you need to determine that”. 
• According to Saylor “Bitcoin has gone through its riskiest period” and that there is “only 450 bitcoin” available for sale each day by “natural sellers” i.e., miners, which at current prices equates to approximately $50M of supply per day. Bitcoin treasury companies “by themselves are buying the entire natural supply” as well as BlackRock and other Spot BTC ETFs. 
• In fact, yesterday BlackRock’s IBIT Spot BTC ETF became the fastest ETF in history to surpass $70B in assets under management. IBIT set the record having traded for approximately 340 days since its debut – in comparison, the previous record-holder SPDR Gold Shares ETF took 1,691 trading days to achieve the same goal. 

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• ETH perpetual swap funding rates surged to 0.03% yesterday, a level they last touched on January 20, 2025, the day before President Trump’s inauguration – reflecting a strong willingness from traders to pay for leveraged long exposure to the ETH token. Its spot price is currently up 3.4% over the past 24 hours, jumping above $2,800 for the first time since late February this year. 

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• ETH’s term structure of volatility remains inverted, with 7-day options now carrying a 10 percentage point premium to 90-day tenors. 
• Like funding rates, ETH volatility smile skews remain significantly bullish towards OTM calls – 7-day ETH options call-skew has steepened from -0.64% on June 9 to current levels of 7.1%. 
• Comparatively, BTC’s term structure of volatility remains positively sloped and volatility smiles are far less skewed towards OTM calls. 90-day options remain the most bullish, with a put-call skew ratio of 1.81%.

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• PayPal’s stablecoin PYUSD briefly topped $1B of circulating supply overnight. While this remains far below Tether’s $157B float, it represents a growth in interest in stablecoins among incumbent payments providers following the clarity of regulation in the GENIUS act, which awaits a vote in the Senate.

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• Alongside the GENESIS Act, the House Committee on Financial Services is also reviewing a Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act.
• The Clarity act sets out to distinguish the regulatory ruling of crypto and digital assets. between the US SEC and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC)

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• Blockchain Group SA (EPA: ALTBG) has received 95% shareholder backing to raise €10B to further invest in Bitcoin accumulation, adding to their current 1471 BTC holding. 

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