BTC back on the move

Bitcoin etched a nice V-shaped recovery over the weekend. The rebound continued into this morning. To recap, the largest crypto late Thursday sank to as low as about $101K. ETF flows went seriously negative and there was a certain toxicity in the air. But that's no longer the case, possibly with fresh signs of possible positive strides made with respect to U.S.-China trade talks.

By Saturday, BTC was back to $106K. Over the past 24 hours, Bitcoin, per CoinGecko, has been as high as $107,458.

A couple of altcoins are flourishing under their own, green-tinted grow lights. One of them is Internet Computer (ICP), 42nd-largest coin, up 10% since yesterday. Amidst hype surrounding Internet Computer's new AI-driven app development platform, Caffeine, ICP hit close to $6 at about 7 a.m. (EST). That kind of level hadn't been touched since early March. ICP has gained 21.7% in the past week.

Additionally, SPX6900 (SPX), a mercurial, non-silly memecoin that bills itself as a symbol of the stifling limitations of TradFi, surged 11.7% since yesterday. In the wake of a 35% rally this past week, SPX now has a $1.2B market cap, making it the 85th-largest coin, according to CoinGecko.

The blockchain industry has been touting the growth of the market for Real World Assets (RWA), with various forms of tokenized funds leading the way.  

But the past ten days have been a grind for one of the better-known RWA-protocol-related tokens, Zebec Network (ZBCN), down 25% since last Monday. At the end of May, ZBCN hit an all-time high of $0.007003. It has since lost more than one-third of its value. ZBCN is still up 134% over the past 30 days. With a market capitalization of $360M, ZBCN remains right on the outer rim of the Top 200.

Another RWA-protocol-related token is Ondo (ONDO). It has gained about 3% in the past week. Over the past month, however, ONDO is down 17%. ONDO is the 49th-largest coin with a market cap of $2.6B.

Didi Taihuttu, patriarch of a nomadic family of crypto evangelists, recently told CNBC that he has changed up their security methods after a wave of violent attacks targeting holders. The family no longer relies solely on hardware wallets, instead opting for a "hybrid" model that involves, in part, a seed phrase split into four eight-word sections etched on to fireproof metal plates and hidden across four continents.

Meanwhile, government-controlled stashes of satoshis have found their nooks around the world, from Bhutan to El Salvador. Soon, Pakistan will join the list of a dozen countries that hold a combined $55B worth of BTC, per BitcoinTreasuries.

At the World Economic Forum in January, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong responded to a question from a BTC critic who wanted to know why any government would ever want to create a strategic reserve of an asset with no intrinsic value. Disputing that characterization while making a case for digital gold's utility, divisibility and portability, Armstrong, per The Crypto Basic, predicted the world's nations could eventually wind up sitting on more BTC than actual gold.

On March 6, 2025, President Trump issued an executive order for the “Establishment of the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and United States Digital Asset Stockpile." The order carved out a distinct office within the Department of the Treasury tasked with overseeing BTC and other cryptos forfeited as part of criminal or civil proceedings. Treasury and Commerce together are tasked with creating strategies for acquiring additional digital assets. It's estimated that the U.S. government as of mid-March held $17B worth of BTC. As far as which cryptos conceivably could find their way into an altcoin pile, President Trump specifically has said ETH, XRP, SOL and ADA would be included. David Sacks, the White House AI and Crypto Czar, has said the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve would be “like a digital Fort Knox."

Earlier this year, President Trump said his administration would be taking a closer look at the holdings inside the actual Fort Knox, about a half-hour's drive from Louisville, Kentucky. "We're going to make sure the gold is there," Trump said, picking up an idea initially floated on X by his ex-First Wing Man Elon Musk.

Clamor for an audit of America's gold trove has grown louder. Last week, Rep. Thomas Massie, a Republican from Kentucky, introduced the Gold Reserve Transparency Act of 2025, which requires the Comptroller General to conduct a thorough audit of the gold holdings in “deep storage” facilities, such as Fort Knox. The entire gold stash is not all there. America splits its governmental gold reserves among a few hiding spots, including the West Point Mint north of New York City as well as the Denver Mint, which sits very much above sea level, and is known for being the single largest producer of physical coins in the world.