Bitcoin Surges to All-Time High As 'Crypto Week' Kicks Off

Things are rapidly accelerating in Washington D.C. as Congress looks to push through multiple crypto bills as part of what House Speaker Mike Johnson is calling “Crypto Week” — and investors are eating it up.

Not only did Bitcoin cross $122,000 to hit a new all-time high to kick off Crypto Week, but vibes deeper in crypto are riding higher as the largest memecoin launchpad Pump.Fun sold out tokens in its fundraise in just 12 minutes to raise $500 million.

Perhaps it’s indicative of the momentum building back in crypto. And if there’s one think I’ve learned in nearly a decade covering crypto — it’s that you do not fight the trend. With Crypto Week serving up the GENIUS Stablecoin Act to potentially clear the final hurdle in opening up access for Big Banks to touch crypto, it’s time to buckle up.

Treasury Trends Accelerate

We’ve covered the new trend of public treasury companies buying Bitcoin and Ethereum ad nauseam lately, so I won’t dwell too much on it. But, we will point out that two buys on Monday looked intriguing:

First, Tom Lee’s Bitmine Immersion Technologies revealed that his first ETH purchase as Chairman was an absolute monster — they’ve now scooped up 163,142 ETH, or about $500 million worth, in an astounding opening salvo.

Consider what that means. One of the smartest guys on Wall Street put his money where his mouth is and pulled the trigger on scooping up ETH. He told us he was looking to front run the major financial giants, and then he front ran the major financial giants. As rule changes accelerate with the potential passing of these crypto bills in Washington, the catch up trade from Wall Street could be massive. But don’t trust what we are saying — just look at what Tom Lee and others are doing.

It’s also worth noting that immediately after the announcement, he got an attaboy from Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin (who is Chairman of the other Ethereum Treasury company Sharplink Gaming.)

Lubin congratulated Tom and fellow treasury company BTCS, while also noting that those in the Ethereum community were working to “mop up the excess ETH so supply-demand dynamics are tightly balanced.”

Pump.Fun Token Sale Raises $500M

The infamous memecoin launchpad announced its PUMP token sale sold out in just 12 minutes to raise $500 million on Saturday.

That’s a pretty big number, though it’s unclear how much of it was already lined up by existing investors and how many additional buys came in. Either way, if we are to believe that Pump.Fun is worth $4 billion as a platform — it may be worth looking at competitors that could be underpriced.

You may be surprised to learn that BONK has its own memecoin launchpad (letsBonk.Fun) that actually passed Pump.Fun in memecoin volume. And like Pump.Fun it also has a mechanism to take 50% of revenue and dedicate that to buying and burning BONK. Fundstrat analyst Sean Farrell wrote in a note to clients that it could mean that BONK has room to 2.4x from here (and that was before the PUMP token sold out.) It’s up about 17% since Pump.Fun’s token sale on Saturday.

Crypto Week in Congress

There are three major bills to pay attention to in Congress this week. One would block the Fed from pursuing a CBDC or central bank digital currency. That was more necessary when Dems were in charge, but now it’s mostly to codify that a US CBDC won’t happen. That puts control firmly with private stablecoin issuers like Circle and Tether.

The other two — the CLARITY Act and the GENIUS Stablecoin Act are more interesting. The former, which seeks to provide rules around crypto market structure and trading may pass the House (it hasn’t passed the Senate yet.) And the stablecoin bill is expected to pass the House. If it does, it will finally establish the rules around stablecoins — and very well trigger the rush of a lot of companies issuing their own.

It’s unclear how all the amendments and rules might shake out though. Things are in flux, and Democrats don’t want to give Big Tech more power than they already have. One amendment may seek to ensure those players can’t join the fold and issue one of their own.

Per Cointelegraph, Thursday and Friday are big days to watch:

On Monday, the House Rules Committee will meet to discuss all three bills. It will set the special rules that “provides the terms and conditions of debate.” On Tuesday, the House will begin discussing the bills, and the vote can start after the debate ends.

Final passage votes on the Clarity Act and the Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act are scheduled for Thursday. The GENIUS Act’s final passage vote is expected on Friday.

Tornado Cash Trial Begins

One of the most important crypto trials since the trial of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried began on Monday. This time, prosecutors in New York are targeting Roman Storm, the co-founder of the money mixer site Tornado Cash.

Before being blocked and taken down by US financial regulators, Tornado Cash served as a place for money launderers to hide their transactions. It also allowed perfectly law abiding citizens to establish privacy for transactions that would have otherwise be laid bare on the internet.

The case gets at the heart of what is fair game in crypto and what is not. A number of high-profile crypto builders, including Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin have rallied around Storm as his trial kicks off, arguing that building these services should be protected and allowed to prevent goverment overreach. Simply providing the tools is not a crime, they say.

“Today, the target is Tornado Cash,” crypto advocacy firm DeFi Education Fund wrote in an explainer on the case. “But under such a sweeping interpretation, tomorrow it could be the developers of a VPN, an encrypted messaging app, or a peer-to-peer file sharing tool.”

Other News in Web3:

• Crypto exchange OKX joins Global Dollar Network, integrates Paxos-issued USDG stablecoin

• Coinbase Stock Hits Record High Alongside Bitcoin as Analysts Highlight 'Growth Runway'

• New RWA project opens $7M onchain lending pool for Illinois solar projects

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